The growing labour troubles and employee unrest facing Paul Martin’s minority government could catch the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in its net within weeks.
But the director of labour relations for the agency said farmers and consumers can be certain that a strike by CFIA employees should not affect meat inspection nor the safety standards for Canadian food.
“Food safety will not be jeopardized,” Stephen Black said in an Aug. 26 interview. “We have precautions we can take and the system will continue to function even if there is a strike.”
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One of the main defences against food inspection disruption is an agreement with the Public Service Alliance of Canada to designate all food inspectors as essential employees ineligible to strike.
However, Black quickly conceded that the union also has tactics it can use to disrupt CFIA operations, including putting up picket lines that block entrance to sites where designated employees go to work.
“I could not guarantee there will be no disruption,” he said. “But food safety will not be undermined.”
Across government departments, the PSAC is negotiating new contracts for several hundred thousand employees. Wages are the main issue.
The negotiations have been complicated by the Martin government’s pledge to reduce costs by reviewing all government spending and finding billions of dollars in internal savings. Employees and their unions fear it could become a repeat of 1995 when sharp budget cuts in Martin’s second budget meant 40,000 public service positions were cut.
“That is not the intention,” finance minister Ralph Goodale said last week. “We are stressing good governance, not cuts.”
But bargaining table suspicion has made this round of negotiations more complicated.
There already are rotating strikes at Parks Canada and negotiations for the 3,845 PSAC members at the inspection agency have reached a stalemate. A total of 1,860 of those have been designated essential.
The negotiations are to go before a conciliation board expected to be convened in September once both sides have found an acceptable chair and appropriate dates can be arranged for hearings.
Once the conciliator has filed a report and assuming there is not a proposed settlement acceptable to both sides, a strike can start after seven days.
“I expect we will be into October before all those steps have been taken,” said Black. “Of course, our preferred result is a negotiated settlement and we are still hoping that is possible.”
PSAC members allowed to strike are support workers and while their absence would be an inconvenience, it should not affect the ability of inspectors to do their work in abattoirs, said Black.
