Picket lines up in Halifax as federal workers begin strike

Unionized federal workers in Halifax set up picket lines on Wednesday after the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and Treasury Board of Canada failed to reach a deal.

The strike officially began Wednesday morning and includes 155,000 workers across the country.

Chris Di Liberatore, executive vice-president of the Atlantic region for PSAC, said one of the biggest sticking points in the dispute is wages that have not kept up with the rate of inflation.

"We've been asking for 4.5 per cent per year over three years and currently the offer doesn't quite come to what we would see meeting that," Di Liberatore said.

The Treasury Board of Canada released a statement Tuesday saying it has done everything it can to reach a deal and that PSAC's demands are unaffordable and would severely impact the government's ability to deliver services to Canadians.

Di Libertore said the union is not asking for too much, just to keep up with inflation. 

Another key issue is work from home. He said they're looking for language in the collective agreement that would allow for reasonable access to work from home.

"We need that flexibility and that ability to work remotely," he said.

Di Libertore said the strike could have significant impacts for Canadians, such as calculating benefits Canadians are relying on and delays with passport and employment insurance applications. But he's not worried about losing public support.

"What we're fighting for here ultimately will benefit them because the federal government needs to set the bar on wages because right now, by not offering a fair wage, they're saying to private sector employees, public sector employees, unionized, not unionized, that they don't deserve a fair wage."

Helen Zebedee, an assistant bankruptcy analyst with the federal government, says the strike is necessary. She said workers want a reasonable wage offer from the government.

"We haven't had a pay increase or new contract since 2021 and the government is offering us a pay cut as a new contract — less than the cost of living," Zebedee said. "We just want not to fall further behind. We have families to feed, we have members who are working two or three jobs using the food bank."

Elizabeth Wozniak, an immigration lawyer with North Star Immigration Law, said it's unclear how the strike will impact her clients. Her firm deals with Canada Border Services Agency, Immigration and Service Canada — all bodies impacted by the strike. She anticipates more backlogs and delays.

"There's already a massive backlog during the pandemic in processing.… We will continue to file applications online throughout the strike but no one is going to be looking at them," Wozniak said. "This just adds more delays to an already semi-delayed, broken system."

Wozniak said the strike will affect people who are already in Canada, people who want to change their employers, people who are applying for new work permits to change jobs, work permits for employers who want to hire people overseas and people who are applying for citizenship.

Tax-return processing could also be delayed, as there are 39,000 Canada Revenue Agency employees on strike.

"Delays with respect to support, delays with respect to receiving a rebate, like all those things are going to be things that affect people right away," Lori Turnbull, director of the School of Public Administration at Dalhousie University, said Thursday.

The Nova Scotia RCMP anticipates the strike will have an impact on some of its services, like administrative support, media relations, web updates and public access to RCMP buildings. But in a news release, it said the strike will not affect its frontline or core policing services and services "necessary for the safety and security of the public will continue as usual."

The RCMP also said services relating to criminal record checks will be impacted. They recommended contacting local detachments for more information.

Detachments in Northeast Nova and Southwest Nova districts will only be open to the public offering front-counter services on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

There will be no impact on answering phone calls placed to detachments. Detachments in the Halifax district will not be affected.