Over 155,000 federal public servants will officially go on strike on Wednesday morning if they do not reach a satisfactory deal with the government by Tuesday evening.
Monday, Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) leadership announced that they were still bargaining with the government, represented by Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS), a good sign for those hoping to dodge a strike as talks were originally supposed to end on Friday.
But PSAC national president Chris Aylward said the union is getting “very frustrated” at the slow-moving negotiations, which are mostly stalled on wages and teleworking.
So his union launched an ultimatum to the federal government on Monday: get us a proposal we’d accept by Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern time, or 120,000 core public service and over 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) employees will be on strike when the clock hits midnight Wednesday.