A threatened strike by thousands of Canadian Food Inspection Agency employees has been averted by a deal between the agency and its main union.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents 4,500 CFIA employees, announced last week that 90 percent of its members approved a new contract that extends to Dec. 31, 2006.
The new agreement provides special wage increases for some CFIA employees as a way to reduce the gap between agency salaries and the general public service. Salaries for all employees will go up 2.5 percent for 2003, 2.25 percent for 2004, 2.4 percent for 2005 and 2.5 percent for 2006. It means a base increase over the four years of the contract of more than 10 percent.
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The contract also includes two additional leave days for employees each year.
Stalled contract talks had led to threats of a CFIA strike in 2004. Inspectors responsible for assessing food safety would not have been eligible to strike but a decision by CFIA support staff to stop work would have slowed the agency’s ability to operate a food inspection and safety system with timely results and reports.
The new four-year collective agreement ends the threat of a labour disruption for the next two years.
PSAC president Nycole Turmel said in a statement that while the new contract did not entirely close the gap between CFIA employees and the rest of government, it helped narrow it.
“Since creation of the agency (in 1997), wages and benefits for these members haven’t kept pace with other federal public sector workers,” she said.
“While we were not able to achieve complete parity in this round, we did negotiate wage adjustments as well as benefit improvements that will significantly reduce the disparity.”
