Canadian border workers could begin job action today. Here's what you need to know
CBC
Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) workers across the country could take job action beginning this afternoon unless a deal is reached before the strike deadline.
Here's what you need to know:
Over 9,000 workers with CBSA, out of about 11,000 total workers, could be part of the job action.
It would include CBSA employees at airports and land and marine ports of entry.
They are represented by the Customs and Immigration Union (CIU), which is affiliated with the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).
The union has set a deadline of 4 p.m. E.T. today. If no deal is reached by that time, the union says workers will take job action immediately.
While the workers would be on strike, it doesn't mean they'll be off the job.
About 90 per cent of workers represented by the union are deemed essential, the CBSA said in a statement. That means they must continue to do their jobs, but are free to participate in job action outside their working hours.
Possible job action could include "work to rule," when workers could apply each and every one of their job's rules and regulations.
"You can create tremendous lineups of those trucks and tremendous lineups of people. It'll be very, very disruptive if they do work-to-rule because so many people cross that border every day," said Ian Lee, an associate professor in the Sprott School of Business at Ottawa's Carleton University.
For example, border officers could ask people, in each and every car, all of the questions permissible at a border crossing.
The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat said that under the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act, employees deemed essential have to provide uninterrupted service and "cannot intentionally slow down border processing."
The union says workers will begin job action if no deal is reached by 4 p.m., after workers voted 96 per cent in favour of strike action.
Both parties started a mediation process on Monday.
A group of Halifax residents is asking the Nova Scotia Supreme Court to look at a provincial decision to greenlight a controversial Fall River development.
Parkside Drive is closed in both directions following reports of a sinkhole, Toronto police say.
The Quebec government will present its fall economic update today.
Aggressive patients and lack of security are making nurses feel unsafe in a rural Western Manitoba emergency union, says the Manitoba Nurses Union.
Saskatoon resident Delynne Bortis knew her commute to work Tuesday morning would be particularly difficult.
WARNING: This story contains details of abuse and intimate partner violence:
The amount of money it takes for people to earn a living wage has increased across the province, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The new owner of Ontario steelmaker Stelco says his company "will not disappoint the people of Hamilton and Nanticoke," where the business's major facilities are based.
A Winnipegger is warning others about an intricate scam she says she almost fell for.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.