PSAC workers from Montreal joining Ottawa picket for May Day
CTV
The Public Service Alliance of Canada is planning on bringing in busloads of workers from Montreal for a large rally in Ottawa on Monday if the union and the federal government fail to reach an agreement this weekend.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) is planning on bringing in busloads of workers from Montreal for a large rally in Ottawa on Monday if the union and the federal government fail to reach an agreement this weekend.
More than 155,000 federal workers represented by PSAC have been on strike since April 19 and have been gradually escalating strike action in the national capital region and around the country.
In an email to members obtained by CTV News, Alex Silas, PSAC's regional executive vice president for the national capital region, says 20 buses of members from Montreal will be joining the picket in Ottawa on Monday to mark International Workers' Day, otherwise known as May Day.
A picket line at Place du Portage in Gatineau, near the office of Liberal MP Greg Fergus, will march across the Ottawa River to Parliament at 9:30 a.m., the email states, to join picketers outside the Prime Minister's Office on Wellington Street and the office of the Treasury Board on Elgin Street.
Picket lines will also be set up in the following locations:
The federal government tabled what it has called its "final offer" on Friday. It includes unspecified "solutions" on key sticking points at the bargaining table, including remote work, the hiring of contractors and seniority, and an "enhanced wage offer."
The government did not provide any details on what it had offered, but the "enhanced wage offer" suggests it has moved away from its long-held position of a nine per cent wage increase over three years. PSAC national president Chris Aylward said previously that nine per cent was a non-starter, but admitted to moving away from the union's demand of a 13.5 per cent increase over three years.
