According to what the newspaper found out tea globe and maila large number of employees – possibly most of the 100,000 non-essential strikers – will still be paid in two weeks given the technological ineptitude and bureaucratic inflexibility of the federal apparatus.

Isn’t it surprising to know that the negotiating game lies precisely in the exhaustion of the parties, especially in financial terms?

Yes, well, there is a delay with the electronic payment system. Accordingly globe and mailthe government says it wants the money back during subsequent paydays, but the daily suggests the union could play a role in finally settling negotiations affecting 155,000 federal employees.

On Friday, the union official I spoke to denied such a possibility. After 19 months of negotiations, couldn’t the federal government have been better prepared?

This story reminds us of last year’s passport management fiasco, or even Phoenix’s payment system not being agile enough to quickly stop payments today¹.

By the way, what are the positions of the two parties? Wage claims are divided into two groups. In the spring of 2022, Canada’s Internal Revenue Service’s 35,000 first-level accountants were asking for a 29.5% pay rise over three years, but some say 33%, likely due to the compounding effect. It’s huge!

More specifically, the demand is 4.5% for 2022, 8% for 2023 and 8% for 2024, plus an adjustment of 9% is added. The federal government has not yet made a formal offer in their case, but is expected to do so after reaching an agreement with the second group.

This second group consists of the other 120,000 strikers. They include auxiliaries, passport officers, technicians, handymen and probation officers. Applications submitted in June 2021 are 13.5% over three years, or 4.5% per year, which is more reasonable but still high.

On Friday, the federal government offered them 9 percent over three years, an offer that was suggested by the Public Welfare Commission, a kind of federal arbitration board. More specifically, the supply is 1.5% for 2021, 4.5% for 2022 and 3% for 2024.

On average, the majority of striking employees — who are mostly women — make between $40,000 and $65,000, says Yvon Barrière, vice president of Quebec’s Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).

Is it realistic? Keep in mind that the average inflation rate was 3.8% in 2021 and 6.8% in 2022, and the Bank of Canada expects 3.5% in 2024 and 2.3% in 2024.

In short, by a simple addition, 13.5% demand over three years could be compared to 14.1% inflation. And that of 29.5% of tax workers would be comparable to inflation of 12.6% over three years.

According to Yvon Barrière, the union has watered down its wine just enough that demand is now below the 13.5% over three years. The same applies to the request from 29.5% of the first group. In short, the two camps are converging.

Also, management negotiators returned to the negotiating table on Friday afternoon after an absence of three days. And they have come up with a new “global offer” that could lead to an agreement this weekend.

Do workers get paid as much, if not more, than inflation? It would be surprising, even irresponsible, if the federal government did this.

On the one hand, the federal government is forecasting continued high deficits for the next few years. Do you know many heavily loss-making companies that offer their employees such raises?

On the other hand, federal employees are known to earn much more than their counterparts in the private sector or in the Quebec government when everything is taken into account (salaries, vacation, retirement plan, etc.).

examples ? A Level 1 or 2 Administrative Technician earns an average of $48.52 per hour actually worked, a positive difference of 7.1% compared to the same position in the Quebec government.

The favorable difference at the federal level is 10.5% for administrative employees, 35% for paralegals and 32% for car mechanics. The data comes from an extensive study on compensation by the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ).

In short, the government’s offer of 9% over three years seems reasonable.

The question of telework remains. The private sector fears that the formal introduction of telework in federal collective agreements will lead to generalization among companies. However, many companies try to make their employees personal again, which could harm them.

Yvon Barrière from PSAC assures me that the union is only looking to include teleworking in collective agreements and not to require it for a minimum number of days per week. Yes…

In any case, I cannot believe that the two parties cannot agree on this issue, knowing that in certain cases and if well monitored, teleworking can bring real savings in time and greenhouse gases (GHG).

Meanwhile, the federal government should adjust its flutes to stop supplying its employees from the first days of the strike. This is the very basis of labor disputes.

1. Remember there are still more than 400,000 payroll issues awaiting treatment with this Phoenix system implemented by the Harper administration seven years ago.