Roughly 9,000 Canada Border Services Agency workers started job actions across Canada on Friday as negotiations between the government and the unions continue.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents the workers alongside the Customs and Immigration Union, confirmed the work-to-rule actions in a statement.
“Our bargaining team representing CBSA employees has been in mediation with CBSA and Treasury all night and through to this morning, and we’re giving them a bit more time to negotiate at the table,” the statement read.
“In the meantime, work-to-rule actions are underway at border crossings and airports across the country.”
Work-to-rule includes actions that slow down operations, like refusing to work overtime, asking each border crosser every question in the manual to extend stops and full checks of receipts from cross-border shopping.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada said it had been bargaining with the government since 2018 and it served a strike notice on Tuesday. The union plans to hold a news conference later in the day.
A spokesperson for the Treasury Board of Canada told Global News in an email that mediation continued throughout the night, and that the “government is still at the table and will not walk away.”
The union’s work-to-rule actions are causing delays at the borders.
Commercial truck driver Andrew Baker said his delivery will be late as a result of waiting two-and-a-half hours at the Blue Water Bridge crossing near Sarnia, Ont.
Baker told Global News he left Ohio at 2:30 a.m. and was due to be in Toronto by noon. He estimates his delivery will be an hour-and-a-half late.
“It’s irritating to be delayed,” he said. “But at the same time if I was a union employee who’s been without a contract for three years, you know, I think they’ve waited long enough to strike.”
In a statement to Global News, the CBSA said it expects border workers, 90 percent of whom have been deemed essential, to continue to “fulfill their duties with the highest level of integrity and professionalism.”
“That being said, travelers should plan for the possibility of additional processing time when crossing the border due in part to this labor action,” the CBSA said.
The dispute comes as Canada is preparing to allow fully vaccinated Americans to visit without having to quarantine starting Aug. 9.
Borders will open to travelers from other countries with the required doses of a COVID-19 shot on Sept. 7.
PSAC-CIU represents 5,500 border services officers, 2,000 headquarters staff, and other workers at Canada Post facilities and in inland enforcement jobs employed by the CBSA and Treasury Board Secretariat.
The union members have been without a contract for about three years because they and their employers have been unable to agree on better protections for staff that the union argues would bring them in line with other law enforcement personnel across Canada and address a “toxic” workplace culture.
Union members voted last month to strike as early as Friday if the two sides couldn’t reach an agreement.
The union said a public interest commission formed when a consensus couldn’t be reached. Several measures were outlined in late July that the unions said include discussions around a paid pensionable meal period for union members, paid firearm practice time, a fitness allowance for officers and new protections for disciplined employees.
The union also said the report encouraged the parties to negotiate expanded seniority rights for scheduling, parameters regarding student work, language ensuring officers aren’t required to work alone and a streamlining of grievance procedures.
