Challenges at the Canadian border: will they or won't they?
Canadian border guards still vote to go on strike.
Just days before the opening of the border with the United States, scheduled for August 9, Canadian border workers may go on strike. It was announced Tuesday, July 27, by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) union, which represents about 9,000 workers.
In addition, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and the Customs and Immigration Union (CIU) have also issued a joint statement that the strike could begin as early as August 6 after 8,500 workers in their services vote to take the action.
Many Canadian Border Service officers, who have been without work contracts for about three years, began planning a strike as early as June. Unions said that all negotiations with employers to improve working conditions had stalled back in December 2020. The situation has still not changed since then, which is why desperate border workers have decided to take such extreme measures.
A union statement said the strike would slow commercial traffic at the land border, as well as negatively affect international mail and the collection of duties and taxes. However, a spokesperson for the Border Services Agency, which announced the strike, did add that 90 per cent of his agency's employees had been identified as "essential", so they would continue their work even in the event of an emergency.
