bout de papier, Vol. 27, No. 4 (2013) — Winter 2013–14 // Hiver 2013-2014, pp. 4–5
l’APASE, Tim Edwards, s’est déroulée en anglais et, par Note de la redaction : l’interview de bout de papier avec le president de a reproduisons ici. Merci de votre compréhensouci d’espace, d’économie et d’autres contraintes, c’est dans cette langue que nous I sion. La traduction du texte integral sera accessible, parallèlement a la publication du present numero, sur le blogue de l’APASE
sion. La traduction du texte integral sera acc La réalité du service extérieur a : http://forei;
bout: When you became President of PAFSO did you ever imagine you would lead the Association into a strike?
TE: When I was elected president in October 2011, PAFSO had already established its position for the bargaining round and negotiations had begun. We were under no illusion the employer would be very accommodating, especially in light of the damaging “pattern” settlement agreed to by the Public Service Alliance of Canada in late 2010. [This deal imposed annual salary increases of 1.5 per cent and eliminated severance pay for retirements or resignations.] But there wasn’t even a whiff of Budget 2012’s “deficit reduction action plan” at the time. Our pay grievances, which dated back to 2005, had been fully aired in the previous round of bargaining in 2009, though we were prevented from addressing them when the Government legislated wages across the public service as an anti-recession measure. So we were cautiously optimistic that, this time around, we could get our issues at least partially resolved without resorting to a strike.
bout: In essence, what was this strike about?
TE: Atits core, this strike was about equal pay for equal work. We wanted to eliminate salary gaps of $3,000 to $14,000 between diplomats and other federal professionals doing the same or similar work in Ottawa, often in neighbouring offices. The latter include economists, lawyers, policy analysts, and commerce officers. The gaps were most acute at the FS-2 level (the second step in our four-level ranking system), our largest cohort of members. They first appeared in 2005 and were exacerbated by the influx of hundreds of non-FS professionals into DFAIT over the last decade to compensate for chronic under-recruitment of Foreign Service Officers.
bout: What was the point of no return in the negotiations that prompted the strike?
TE: On January 31, 2013, we conceded to Treasury Board’s two key demands. We accepted annual increases of 1.5 per cent per year — well beneath inflation and wage growth in the wider Canadian economy — and the elimination of severance pay for a one-time salary boost of 0.75 per cent. In exchange, we asked the employer to address our long-standing wage gaps, which we saw as unfair, demoralizing, and a serious threat to retention. We were told on the spot there was no reason to offer Foreign Service Officers one cent more than what had been tabled the first day of negotiations 18 months earlier. At that point, it was clear to us that only a strike mandate could give us the leverage we needed to have our grievances addressed.
bout: What prompted the call for binding arbitration in July, a key turning point in the strike?
TE: By mid-July, we had been conducting targeted withdrawals of service for about eight weeks, including at some of Canada’s largest visa-processing centres abroad. Media reports were suggesting that the economic impact of these walkouts on the tourism and education sectors as well as on industries which rely on temporary foreign workers was significant and would grow in severity if the strike persisted. To prevent further damage to the economy, PAFSO formally proposed to Treasury Board president Tony Clement that we take our dispute to binding arbitration (which would allow us to immediately suspend strike measures). We stressed that if he was so confident his long-standing pay offer was “fair and reasonable,’ he would not hesitate to submit it to third-party scrutiny.
bout: Treasury Board argued at the Public Service Labour Relations Board that there was no need to act in good faith in “voluntary” arbitration. What do you think it hoped to gain by such logic?
TE: I can’t speak to the rationale behind Treasury Board’s approach. But the eventual ruling of the Labour Relations Board implied that the Government had backed itself into a corner in July when, instead of flatly refusing our offer of arbitration, they sought to impose paralyzing preconditions on the process which would have predetermined the outcome in their favour. Once we filed our bad-faith bargaining complaint, perhaps Treasury Board believed their only option at that point was to push a narrow textual interpretation of the Public Service Labour Relations Act — divorced from the guiding principles which underlie the law — where it says that parties can refer any outstanding issue to arbitration using whatever process they agree on. Their problem was that they intentionally proposed a process they knew we couldn’t possibly accept.
bout: In the past, Ministers of Foreign Affairs have spoken up on behalf of Canada’s diplomats. John Baird apparently did not, nor did CIC Minister Chris Alexander. Is that just realpolitik or symptomatic of a deeper problem?
TE: Throughout the strike, many members of Cabinet, including Minister Baird, were lobbied by Foreign Service Officers while on official travel to intervene with Treasury Board and convey a more accurate picture of the value of FS work — work which they were seeing first-hand. All committed to follow up with Minister Clement. We were not privy to these subsequent discussions of course, but we are confident that our ministers would have underlined the indispensable contribution of Foreign Service Officers to advancing the Government’s agenda. Sadly, any ministerial lobbying would have been overtaken by a decision made “at the top political levels” on June 5 to withhold a revised pay offer when negotiations with PAFSO resumed briefly. Once the Government had elevated our dispute into a political issue, any Cabinet-level interventions behind the scenes would likely have either been postponed or failed to gain traction.
bout: Why did the government allow this to go on so long and single out PAFSO given the settlements reached with other bargaining units that exceeded the pattern? TE: What distinguishes us from other bargaining units is that we were the first —and to date only — union in the life of this government to enter into a legal strike position. While I can’t speak to the government’s thinking in taking such a hard line with PAFSO, our decision to use job action to pursue our wage demands was precedent-setting. It is possible Cabinet wanted to establish clear markers for other federal unions that might consider this course of action in future. The fact that the unity, determination, and stamina of PAFSO members had never before been tested in a strike, and that PAFSO had long been considered one of the weakest and least militant unions in the public service, probably also played into the Government’s calculus.
bout: How much do you think this struggle has cost Canadians in terms of economic collateral damage?
TE:A precise figure may never be known. Calculating the cost is certainly beyond PAFSO’s capacity given the countless individual Canadians, businesses, and visa and permanent residency applicants affected in some way by the strike. But based strictly on the Tourism Industry Association of Canada’s estimate of $280 million in lost revenue during the summer season alone, and a 5—10 per cent shortfall in the number of study permits which trendlines had anticipated for 2013 (bearing in mind that international students inject $8 billion annually into the Canadian economy), the impact would have to be expressed in many hundreds of millions of dollars, and perhaps even close to $1 billion. It should be noted that our members consider this a regrettable and wholly disproportionate outcome which could have been easily avoided.
bout: How do you see this struggle evolving post-job action?
TE: Although the strike is over, many challenges remain — some arriving sooner than we would have liked after such a protracted and acrimonious dispute. On October 22, the Government unveiled the most sweeping changes to labour relations in the federal public service since collective bargaining was introduced in 1967. This unprecedented attack on the free negotiation of terms of employment, buried inside a fast-tracked budget bill, is undemocratic and deeply harmful to the collective rights and interests of PAFSO members and will be resisted. In addition, the Government signalled in Budget 2012 that it wants to slash the amount disbursed to employees under the Foreign Service Directives. [These payments offset differences in the cost and quality of living between Ottawa and posts abroad.] Then there are continuing cuts to departmental operating budgets, as well as persistent inconsistencies in the classification, staffing, and remuneration of jobs at DFATD which triggered the strike in the first place. bout: Can the damage to relations between the government and its diplomats soon be healed?
TE: To the extent that salary is a barometer of the value and respect accorded a profession, this strike’s outcome — notably the elimination of wage gaps at the FS-2 and FS-4 levels — suggests that the Government ultimately recognized (if grudgingly) the excellent return on investment it gets for every Foreign Service Officer. Now that we are back at work, members are doing everything in their power to ensure a swift recovery and minimize the strike’s longterm impact on Canada’s reputation as a destination for travel, study, employment, and immigration. We also continue to enthusiastically supply the same loyal, fearless, and expert advice on which successive governments have relied to achieve their international priorities. But in a competitive global arena, a country with Canada’s footprint, ambition, and scope of interests demands a motivated and well-resourced Foreign Service. A productive relationship between government and its diplomats over the long run will require not just one favourable contract, but a reversal of the systematic nickel-and-diming of our conditions of service and the essential tools of our trade in recent years — including travel, hospitality, training, and public diplomacy budgets. bout: What more needs to be done to get the Canadian public to appreciate the value of the Foreign Service?
TE: One of the collateral benefits of job action is that it gave us a podium to counter many of the negative myths associated with diplomatic work and the circumstances under which it is performed. We were able to tell our story and control our narrative, offering an accurate and up-to-date picture of the professional and environmental challenges we face. As the strike progressed, it seemed that more Canadians — though certainly not all! — thought that equal pay was not such an outlandish request by those tasked with defending and promoting Canada overseas. Although it was never PAFSO’s aim to carry the day in the court of public opinion (we simply wanted to be ready to rebut Government messaging as needed) media coverage turned out to be broadly sympathetic. PAFSO intends to use this attention, momentum, and our well-oiled advocacy machine to continue building a community of interest and presenting a current image of life in the Foreign Service.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 27, No. 4 (2013) — Winter 2013–14 // Hiver 2013-2014, pp. 4–5. Read the rest of this issue →
