The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, already battered by critics of the food inspection system, is facing the prospect of an April strike by its unionized employees.
While CFIA officials say they would be able to continue to guarantee safe food, they also concede that a strike by food inspectors and office staff would be a blow to the agency.
“We are confident that the food safety system will not be put into jeopardy,” said Bill Peeter, executive director for CFIA Ontario operations.
Pat Ballantyne, CFIA director of labor relations, said the agency has been working on a contingency plan in the event of a strike, but said it wanted to avoid a strike at all costs.
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Yves Ducharme, national president of the agricultural union within the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said the union could not close down the CFIA but it could make life difficult.
“We certainly could slow things down and put pressure on the employer.”
Last week, PSAC members employed by the CFIA voted to authorize their union to take job action to help settle a contract dispute. That could include eventual strike action.
The two sides have been locked in a struggle over wages.
They go back to conciliation at the end of March and if a settlement is not reached, a strike would be possible in April.
PSAC officials say the wage settlement offered by the CFIA falls far short of comparable workers in public and private sectors and the inflation rate.
Ballantyne countered that the agency has offered a fair wage increase.
The agency’s strongest card is that 1,686 of the agency’s more than 1,800 food inspectors are designated as essential and would not be able to strike.
However, Ducharme said employees forced to be on the job while their union is on strike can find ways to slow down the system and will not do more than they are paid to do.
There also would be potential for the union to do something other than to call a general strike. Although the union executive did not specify possibilities, there could be strategies that would not allow the agency to invoke the “essential service” designation for employees, including work-to-rule and rotating strikes.
Ducharme said better pay in the private sector is luring food inspectors away at a time when the federal auditor general has warned that the CFIA needs at least 500 more of them.
