The Conservatives stopped workers from striking with back-to-work legislation at Air Canada, Canada Post and CP Rail, but the prospect of an escalating labour disruption from 1,350 foreign service officers, who went on strike earlier this week, is the government’s first showdown with its own employees and many will be watching to see who blinks first.
The first salvo came from Foreign Affairs and International Trade, which blocked the foreign service union from the department’s email system a week before the strike was called, stopping it from reaching members posted abroad who account for about 60 per cent of union membership.
The Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers (PAFSO) then launched a low-key and rather diplomatic offensive with electronic picket lines that use email replies to warn those contacting the department of delays and inconvenience because of the strike.
The department quickly countered with a message warning all employees they could be disciplined, even fired, if they ‘e-picket’ or use any of their email features as pressure tactics to advance their collective bargaining issues.
“The use of the department’s electronic mail system, including the ‘Out of Office’ feature or modifications or additions to signature blocks to promote an agenda that is adverse to the interests of the department must cease immediately,” wrote Nadir Patel, assistant deputy minister and chief financial officer at DFAIT.
“Should such inappropriate use of electronic mail continue, it may result in administrative or disciplinary measures up to and including termination of employment.”
The union has since filed an unfair labour practices complaint with the Public Service Labour Relations Board. The union used e-pickets during its 2002 strike and were asked to take them down but the situation didn’t escalate any further.
PAFSO president Timothy Edwards said measures like work-to-rule actions could escalate to including a withdrawal of services.
A spokesman for Treasury Board President Tony Clement wouldn’t comment on the impasse, but said disrupting services to Canadians would be “unfortunate” and the government would do its “utmost” to ensure services are delivered in a timely fashion.
PAFSO is not known for its militant labour tactics. It’s a small, cohesive union and won a strong strike mandate from its members in a March vote after talks collapsed for a final time. About 75 per cent of its members voted and 82 per cent of those backed a strike.
“It was a remarkable turnout, which says a lot in this fiscal climate,” said Edwards.
But Canada’s foreign service officers are among the thousands of prison guards, border guards, pilots and rail, marine and aviation inspectors represented by five unions that have gone to the wall with the Treasury Board over monetary demands and the surrender of severance pay for public servants who retire or voluntarily leave.
“It’s fair to say there is a significant amount of mutual support among unions right now,” said Edwards. “We will all respect picket lines and won’t do anything to undermine any legal job action.”
Each union has outstanding pay issues they want resolved before surrendering severance pay, which the Conservatives want eliminated. The government has earmarked $3.5 billion over three years to get accumulated severance for voluntary departures off the books.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada reached a 5.3 per cent wage deal with the government in 2011 and was the first to surrender voluntary severance pay for a .75 per cent increase. The concession created a backlash that divided unions, since many thought severance was worth at least two per cent of pay.
Treasury Board offered the same take-it-or-leave-it deal to the other 18 unions but sweetened the deals for some workers, including lawyers, engineers and architects.
“The government has made concessions at the table … so when it suits them, they can compromise. But these wage gaps have been festering for eight years,” said Edwards.
That is partly what led to contract impasses with some of the most aggressive federal unions, which are now in various stages of conciliation to help reach settlements and avert strikes. The next in line for a possible strike are the 11,000 employees who work in a variety of technical fields in laboratories or as grain, aviation, rail and marine inspectors. That group has a conciliation report that supports many of its issues, but the Treasury Board has not returned to the table since January to discuss it.
“It’s so frustrating that it takes so long and these delays seem to be a government tactic,” said Bob Jackson, a regional vice-president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. “I think the public would like some sense of labour security in the public service and I don’t think protracted negotiations that take two years is in anyone’s best interest.”
Canadian businesses and travellers could feel the brunt of the foreign service strike, especially if it drags on and overlaps with strikes by other unions, such as for customs and border guards.
The government, however, has blunted the striking clout of its unions over the years. Prison guards, who could create chaos if they stopped working, are considered essential and can’t strike. Border guards could paralyze the borders and the government wants all of them to be designated essential too.
The big issue for the foreign service officers is pay, and the growing gap with other professionals doing the same work that has been “festering” for eight years, said Edwards. Some say the gap is becoming significant enough that DFAIT has trouble keeping foreign service officers by mid-career.
Edwards said the problem “spiralled out control” with a shortage of foreign service officers that evolved over the years. The department slowed down recruitment significantly in the mid 2000s, compounded by the split of Foreign Affairs and International Trade into two departments, forcing the hiring of other higher-paid professionals to fill foreign service jobs.
The government historically recruited 100 or more new foreign service officers at the entry level every year, putting them through the paces of its famously tough entrance exams. It conducted an exam in 2011 but hasn’t hired anyone from the pool of those who qualified. The last one before that was in 2008.
Instead, management filled foreign service jobs with commerce officers and economists to the point that they now outnumber the number of foreign service officers at headquarters, said Edwards. They do the same jobs and are managed interchangeably but foreign service officers are paid up to $10,000 less a year at the top of their pay scale.
A bigger pay gap exists between lawyers employed by the Justice department at DFAIT and lawyers recruited to be foreign service officers.
Edwards said that salary gap becomes a bigger irritant when foreign service officers are posted abroad and face the challenges of working in dangerous or conflict areas that the commerce officers and economists doing their foreign service jobs at home don’t face. Commerce officers and economists can be posted on single assignments abroad into foreign service jobs but their salaries are red-circled rather than reduced.
The conciliator didn’t fully buy PAFSO’s arguments and came up with a proposal that as one foreign officer said “wasn’t enough for PAFSO and was too much for the government.”
PAFSO has also backed down on two of the government’s key demands and agreed to the 5.3 per cent raise and gave up severance as a concession that recognizes today’s “economic climate” to address the growing wage gap between employees.
But unions are battling the government in a hostile labour environment. The controversial bill that forced unions to disclose their financial transactions, including political activities, was passed and proposals are being floated to scrap the Rand formula and bring in “right to work” legislation.
At the same time, speculation is rife that the government wants to eliminate accumulated sick leave, revamp disability management and drastically change the way labour relations are managed in the federal government.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: KATHRYN MAY
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