Strike votes coming for Canada Revenue Agency workers after talks yield no deal

More than 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency employees will start strike votes at the end of January after talks broke down over wages and remote work.

Workers at the CRA have been without a contract for more than a year and will be in a legal strike position if members vote in favour of a strike mandate, according to a joint union statement released Tuesday by the Union of Taxation Employees and the Public Service Alliance of Canada. The votes will be held from Jan. 31 to April 7, ahead of the April 30 tax filing deadline.

Workers' wages have stalled while the cost of living has continued to rise, and everyone is feeling the strain," said Chris Aylward, PSAC national president in the statement. We've been clear negotiating wages that keep up with inflation and a sensible remote work policy are critical to reach a deal, but the Agency has refused to respond to our wage offer and still has major concessions on the table."

Skyrocketing inflation is contributing to unrest across Canada's unionized workforce and experts say this could lead to more strikes in 2023. Inflation hit 6.8 per cent in November, driving up the cost of food and other household necessities including gas and electricity.

Sheila Block, senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said the pressure is ramping up in negotiations this year, as workers continue to see their wages eroded by inflation while they gain more bargaining power due to a tight labour market.

For workers, if they're not happy with their employment situation, if they're not getting adequate remuneration or good working conditions, it gets easier to contemplate leaving their job because it's easier to find another one," Block said.

And because of low unemployment rates and higher job vacancy rates, it's harder for employers to fill vacant positions and therefore there is an incentive for them to actually meet the demands of their workers."

The first sign of inflation's impact on labour negotiations in Ontario was in the construction industry. More than 30,000 workers in several trades walked off the job in May last year over wages; industry representatives said they couldn't remember the last time so many trades were on strike at the same time.

Later in the year, another major indication was when the Ontario government invoked a constitutional clause to override the right to strike for 55,000 education workers in the province. The government backed down after unions in the public and private sector threatened a provincewide general strike.

In the private sector, Block said Ontario might expect more hard bargaining in sectors where the employer is doing well financially but where workers' wages have been lagging behind, like in grocery stores."

In the public sector, similar activity can be expected where there is a shortage of workers and where wages are also lagging," added Block, including in teaching and nursing.

Patty Coates, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, said more strikes are happening in sectors typically not seen before.

We're going to see more of this activity in sectors like hospitality and in retail," Coates said, adding that unionization among Canadian Starbucks employees, for example, is starting to gain traction.

On the other hand, increased bargaining power might also indicate less strike activity in the future, Block said: Unions are more likely to achieve their goals because there's a greater incentive for employers to settle.

I don't think any union ever takes the decision to go out on strike lightly," she added. But in a situation where they might be seeing real erosion of the purchasing power of their wages and they're not seeing any movement on the side of the employer, the current conditions with lower unemployment rates and higher inflation make it more likely that they might go on strike."

Ghada Alsharif is a Toronto-based staff reporter for the Star. Reach Ghada via email: galsharif@torstar.ca