Canada’s Public Service Union Predator Class

Tens of thousands of federal public servants are in a position to strike after months of fruitless negotiations with their Ottawa bosses. Key pieces of dispute include non-wage benefits and whether some type of remote work protection should be part of collective agreements. When it comes to the demand for pay hikes, labour leaders can point to statistics showing Canadian average hourly wages up more than 5 per cent, year-over-year.

But if federal public servants walk off the job in the days or weeks ahead, prepare for a blast of public opinion against the strike, especially outside the Ottawa-Gatineau region.

A union representing more than 120,000 federal public servants across Canada has voted in favour of a strike mandate, leaders said in a news conference Wednesday morning.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) did not say when a strike could happen nor how many members voted in favour of a strike, but president Chris Aylward said an “overwhelming majority” voted for a strike mandate.

About 35,000 PSAC workers at the Canada Revenue Agency, which are a different group, voted in favour of strike action Friday ahead of mediation talks set to take place later this month.

Public service unions are part of the political class and a huge reason the likes of Trudeau can be elected. The LPC will give them whatever they want. Buying votes with your money is what they do.

It’s quite remarkable: What is in the best interests of students in Ontario coincides exactly with what will make the teachers’ unions richer, more powerful and less accountable. I learned of this remarkable coincidence last week while commuting in the Toronto subway, where the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA), a union of over 45,000 teachers, is currently running an ad campaign. By happy synchronicity, everything the union says will improve students’ learning and well-being benefits the union, too.

Someone is going to have to bust the public service unions one day.

Despite only meeting performance goals less than 60 per cent of the time, federal public servants received just under $200 million in bonuses last year, mostly to public administration executives.

That brings total bonuses handed to federal workers during the COVID-19 pandemic to over half a billion dollars, paid out between the 2019–20 and 2021–22 fiscal years.

Our public service union predator class.

One of the province’s largest public sector unions has launched a $24 million lawsuit against three former senior employees and at least 15 individuals or businesses it alleges they had undeclared ties to, accusing them of a scheme including payments for bogus or unfinished work as well as kickbacks.

The statement of claim, which has not been proven in court, was filed Thursday by the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union and comes amid its ongoing financial forensic audit and just two months after it filed a $6 million-plus case in Ontario’s Superior Court, also alleging financial irregularities.

The federal government and unionized workers are preparing to lock horns over double-digit wage hikes to account for higher inflation and rules for remote work in what is shaping up to be a heated series of contract negotiations.

This year’s negotiations are particularly unusual and intense not only because of inflation, but because of the size and scope of public-service departments that are at the bargaining table, and the number of workers gearing up for strike votes.

OTTAWA – The union representing more than 10,400 federal public servants who operate government buildings and services is asking for a 47-per-cent increase in total compensation over three years, a demand that is “far beyond” reasonable, according to an independent commission.

Give us a 30% wage hike and pay us for meals when we work overtime at home, federal workers say.

Those are some of the demands of employees of the Canada Revenue Agency currently negotiating contracts post-pandemic.

Two large federal government unions – the Union of Taxation Employees (UTE) and the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) – are demanding huge pay raises. Outrageous pay raises. Raises that, in the real world, could fairly be described as “nuts.”