DETROIT, Mich. — “I’m empty right now,” said Tom Jesso.
Jesso is trying to get back to Canada to load up on some more material.
“Scrap steel,” he adds.
From the looks of the backup on the interstate, he doesn’t know if he will be able to make another trip. He and many other truck drivers have been in traffic for over an hour and a half trying to get across the Canadian border.
The backup is also impacting the flow of traffic just trying to get around metro Detroit.
“I seen all the trucks backed up and I’m like what is going on?” one driver asks.
It’s a ‘work-to-rule’ strike in Canada. The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and the Customs and Immigration Union are representing almost 9,000 thousand border employees in this strike.
The aim is to get work contracts for workers who have been working without the official document for 3 years and to improve “toxic” work conditions.
Until they can reach an agreement with the Canadian government the “work-to-rule” strike is in place, meaning workers at airports and borders will perform their duties to ’the letter of the law’.
For example, in a normal instance, a border worker would ask 2-3 questions while crossing the border, you’ll now be asked every question in the manual making a 30-second stop at the border take up to 5 minutes per vehicle.
This is causing long and avoidable delays.
“I never in my life, never seen it like this before that backed up,” said Tavesha Martin.
This is all happening just days before Canada opens the border to American travelers.
Canada’s Treasury board tells us mediations with the unions began Thursday night and the government will not walk away.
In a statement from the board's public affairs chief, Geneviève Sicard, they say:
The Government of Canada’s offers to all bargaining agents take into consideration current economic conditions, including other collective agreement settlements, the government’s ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees, employment conditions in the federal government relative to other Canadian workplaces and responsible fiscal management.
People caught in this job action say leaders need to figure it out.
“There’s a lot of people involved in here. A lot of goods going back and forth,” Jesso adds.
The backup is costing businesses to lose money and potentially the Canadian government.
We are told workers can choose to stop collecting duties and taxes, costing the government up to $87 million in lost revenue every day.
In a statement to 7 Action news the Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA) says they expect “that officers will continue to fulfill their duties with the highest level of integrity and professionalism.”
They went on to say:
Travellers should plan for the possibility of additional processing time when crossing the border due in part to this labour action. The Agency thanks travelers and businesses for their patience.
The Treasury Board did confirm to us that this strike is legal.
For more information and background on the ongoing from the Canadian Government read below:
Since May 31, 2018, when the Public Service Alliance of Canada - Customs and Immigration Union served notice to bargain with the Employer, the parties have met at the table for 14 sessions totaling 39 days.
On December 2, 2020, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) declared impasse in its negotiations with the employer on behalf of border services officers in the FB group.
Public Interest Commission hearings were held in May 2021 and a non-binding report was published by the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board on July 28, 2021.
The union signalled, in June 2021, that they would be moving to a strike vote and announced, in a press conference on July 27, 2021, that they had received a favourable strike vote from their members.
An essential services agreement was signed in July 2021 and PSAC will be in a legal strike position on August 6, 2021.
On August 3, 2021, the Government of Canada made a formal request for the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board to appoint a mediator to help bridge differences and to establish a path to reach a fair and reasonable agreement for employees and Canadian taxpayers. The board has now appointed a mediator and mediation sessions between the Government of Canada and the Public Service Alliance of Canada began the evening of August 4, 2021.
The Government of Canada has great respect for border services officers and the important work that they do and remains committed to reaching agreements with all bargaining agents that are fair to employees, mindful of today’s economic and fiscal context and reasonable for Canadian taxpayers.
The Government of Canada has reached agreements covering 95 per cent of the federal unionized workforce for this round of bargaining and is confident that an offer has been put forward that provides a reasonable basis on which to reach an agreement with the Public Service Alliance of Canada for its members at the Canada Border Services Agency.
The Government has participated fully in the Public Interest Commission (PIC) and appreciate the Commission’s work and the recommendations they have brought forward to help the parties resolve the matters in dispute. Of note, the commissioner’s assessment is that the number of proposals put forward by the bargaining agent “far surpasses the incremental change that should be expected in one round of bargaining”.
The Government of Canada’s offers to all bargaining agents take into consideration current economic conditions, including other collective agreement settlements, the government’s ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees, employment conditions in the federal government relative to other Canadian workplaces and responsible fiscal management.
The offer to PSAC aligns with other recently negotiated agreements, including:
- PSAC agreements for more than 106,000 public servants that provided pay increases of 6.48 per cent over three years which would translate to salary increases for the majority of front-line border services officers of $5,000, from $82,000 to $87,000, over the course of an agreement.
- A recent agreement for correctional workers, represented by UCCO-SACC, that provided pay increases of 8.1 per cent over four years which would translate to salary increases for the majority of front-line border services officers of almost $7,000, from $82,000 to $89,000, over the course of an agreement.
