Latest Updates: Tentative Agreement reached with TB and PSAC

Very early Monday morning, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) announced it had reached a “tentative” agreement with the federal government for the 120,000 picketing Treasury Board workers who, since April 19, had been engaged in one of the largest strikes in Canadian history.

While a deal has been reached for the striking employees in the education and library; program and administrative; operational service; and technical service bargaining units in Canada’s core public service, 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency workers remain on the picket line.

The agreement comes after Treasury Board President Mona Fortier put what she said was a “final” offer on the table over the weekend. We’ll be learning more about the deal, as well as hearing reaction to it as the day unfolds, and providing live updates from Parliament Hill, below.

12:30 P.M. ET: ‘EXCELLENT NEWS FOR EMPLOYEES’ SAYS FORTIER

Reacting to the May Day deal reached, Treasury Board President Mona Fortier called the tentative agreement “excellent news for employees, and for Canadians.”

“This wasn’t easy. We negotiated, we compromised, and we found creative solutions. And after many long days, nights, and weekends of hard work, we’ve reached fair and competitive deals.”

Overall, Fortier said the cost of the deal is estimated at $1.3 billion a year, or as she framed it: “less than half of the cost of the PSAC’s original demands.” She pointed to the federal government presenting its final offer as when “things started to shift.”

Pointing to the added year secured under the agreement—keep reading for more details on this below—Fortier said it will provide “an additional year of stability” before the two sides have to go back to the bargaining table.

Speaking to the remote work provisions, Fortier said re-evaluating the telework directive for the first time since 1993 is a due step in the post-pandemic era and won’t result in an influx of remote work grievances.

Fortier said negotiators remain at the table with the CRA and she’s “looking forward to see how this will unfold.”

The federal government plans to resume service delivery such as approving immigration and passport applications “as quickly as possible.”

12:05 P.M. ET: PSAC VP ALEX SILAS ON CRA STRIKE

In an interview on The Vassy Kapelos Show on iHeartRadio, Alex Silas, the regional executive vice-president for PSAC in the National Capital Region, called the tentative deal something public servants can be proud of.

“Those gains and the advancements on wages would not have been possible without members taking action,” he said, speaking from a picket line for CRA workers whose representatives are now engaged in a negotiation “blitz” to try to secure a deal for those 35,000 striking workers as May 1 marks the tax filing deadline.

“We would have hoped that along with setting a new mandate to conclude fair deals at the four Treasury Board tables, that the federal government would have also produced a new mandate for the CRA table. Unfortunately, they failed to do that last night,” he said. The CRA has different demands on the table from what Treasury Board was after.

According to Silas, seeing the 120,000 core public service workers secure a deal was after “a lot of back and forth over the weekend” and more willingness to reach a deal.

“This contract will take us until 2025, but we’ll be prepared to get back to the table to continue making advancements and gains on the gains that we’ve already made in this round,” he said.

Very early Monday morning, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) announced it had reached a “tentative” agreement with the federal government for the 120,000 picketing Treasury Board workers who, since April 19, had been engaged in one of the largest strikes in Canadian history.

While a deal has been reached for the striking employees in the education and library; program and administrative; operational service; and technical service bargaining units in Canada’s core public service, 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency workers remain on the picket line.

The agreement comes after Treasury Board President Mona Fortier put what she said was a “final” offer on the table over the weekend. We’ll be learning more about the deal, as well as hearing reaction to it as the day unfolds, and providing live updates from Parliament Hill, below.

 

8:45 A.M. ET: TREASURY BOARD CONFIRMS DEAL

Confirming the tentative agreement, the Treasury Board of Canada said, once ratified, finding satisfactory common ground at the bargaining table was many long hours in the making.

The federal government said the agreed-to wage offer was 11.5 per cent over four years, retroactive to 2021. This wage offer is a departure from the nine per cent over three years that the government left on the table for most of the strike, and not as high as the 13.5 per cent wage demand PSAC came to the table with.

Treasury Board said that they will also offer these workers a “group-specific allowance of 0.5 per cent” in the third year of the deal, as well as a one-time payment of $2,500.