The Treasury Board of Canada has made a scandalous wage offer to the largest section of federal civil service workers in the country.
Three bargaining units represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada, made up of over 120,000 Treasury Board workers, have been working without a contract for almost a year. These workers perform an essential role in the day-to-day running of important government services, including things like welfare programs. After delaying negotiations this long, the Treasury Board has come forward with a proposed wage increase averaging less than one per cent a year over the next four years.
This is a shameless attack on the livelihoods of these workers. It comes nowhere close to the union’s demand of 4.75 per cent per year, and with inflation at 2.8 per cent and climbing, with gas and grocery prices rising by the day, it represents a huge pay cut in real terms. This is one of the lowest wage offers made by the federal government in generations. The labour movement must take notice, because this is only a sign of things to come.
Carney has made it very clear that he intends to take an axe to the public sector, from his ongoing efforts to gut the postal service to his pledge to eliminate 40,000 civil service jobs in his first budget. For the jobs he can’t eliminate entirely, he will try to impose the worst deals possible.
The government wants to set a new standard for the public sector, starting with the largest section of the civil service. That means until a serious, militant fightback is organized, deals like this will become the new norm.
