PSAC calls strike votes for 120,000 federal workers over pay fight
Web StoryWatch this story in 15 seconds →Key takeaways
- PSAC announced strike votes for 120,000 federal public service workers on October 21, 2026.
- Voting runs from November 16, 2026, to January 22, 2027, across the PA, TC, and EB groups.
- The trigger is a Treasury Board wage offer below 1% per year, which the union calls a pay cut.
Canada's largest federal public service union wants its members to vote on a strike. The Public Service Alliance of Canada, known as PSAC, announced the move on October 21, 2026. About 120,000 federal workers will take part.
A strike vote is not a strike. It is a formal vote where workers decide whether they give their union permission to strike later. If most members vote yes, the union can legally walk off the job if talks fail.
What happened
PSAC announced nationwide strike votes for 120,000 federal public service workers. The votes cover three bargaining groups: Program and Administrative Services (PA), Technical Services (TC), and Education and Library Science (EB).
Voting will take place from November 16, 2026, to January 22, 2027. That is more than two months of voting sessions across the country.
The dates, locations, and registration details for the voting sessions will be shared on October 28. Members will get an email with their voting credentials from [email protected].
The announcement follows a year and a half of stalled contract talks with Treasury Board. Treasury Board is the federal body that acts as the employer in these talks. The two sides met with a mediator on October 8 and 9. PSAC said the employer moved at an extremely slow pace during that session.
The union also won a historic step before this vote. The federal labour board agreed to skip the long Public Interest Commission process for the EB group. That speeds up the path to a legal strike position.
Why the union is angry
The main issue is pay. In April, Treasury Board tabled a wage offer that averages less than 1% per year. PSAC calls the offer insulting.
The union says it is really a pay cut.
Here is the math. The offer works out to about $58 more per month over the life of the agreement, according to the union. At the same time, workers face rising costs for food, rent, transport, and childcare.
When prices rise faster than pay, workers can buy less. That is a pay cut in real terms.
The employer is also pushing concessions. A concession is a give-back the employer wants in the contract. PSAC lists three of them.
First, the employer wants to remove workforce adjustment and the dental care plan from collective bargaining. This would strip the union's power to negotiate job security and benefits in future rounds.
Second, the employer wants to expand the normal daily work-hour window. This would let managers schedule workers at odd hours without extra pay.
Third, the employer wants more management control over leave and benefits. The union says this would make it harder for members to get the time off they are entitled to.
PSAC also says the employer refuses to talk about remote work rules and protections against artificial intelligence. AI protections would limit how the employer can use AI to replace or monitor workers.
"We want to negotiate a fair deal, but by pushing pay cuts and refusing to discuss any of our key issues, Treasury Board has given us no choice but to take strike votes," said PSAC national president Sharon DeSousa.
The workers who will vote do many different jobs. They include wildland firefighters, passport and benefit officers, and fishery officers. They also include federal teachers, librarians, and administrative staff.
These workers are the face of the federal government for many Canadians. Passport officers process travel documents. Benefit officers handle payments people rely on.
A strike by these groups could slow services across the country.
The bigger picture
This fight did not start this week. Federal workers and the government have been drifting apart for two years.
The parliamentary budget officer says the federal public service has shed more than 23,000 staff in the last two years. The Liberals' 2025 budget plans to cut the public service by 10% by the end of the 2028-29 fiscal year.
At the same time, the government is pushing workers back into offices. Thousands of federal workers started a four-day-a-week in-office schedule in July. Senior executives returned full-time in May.
The government also plans to spend over $18 million to reconfigure office space for the return. One report put the figure at $18,720,150 across 13 federal organizations.
PSAC members know this playbook. In 2023, 155,000 PSAC members spent 12 days on picket lines across Canada. They won wage increases of 12.6% over the agreement's term, which ran from 2021 to 2024.
That history matters now. The union proved it can shut down federal services for almost two weeks. The government knows it too.
Other unions are watching. A union pay deal at Commonwealth Bank showed how coordinated bargaining can move an employer. Workers elsewhere are asking the same questions about remote work rights.
And the wave of job cuts across sectors makes job security the top issue in this round.
What happens next
The next key date is October 28. That is when PSAC will publish the voting session dates and locations. Members should watch their email for voting credentials.
Voting runs from November 16 to January 22. If the vote passes, the union would be in a legal strike position for 60 days. That means PSAC could call a strike any time in that window.
But a yes vote does not mean a strike will happen. Union leaders call a strike the last resort. The vote is mainly a pressure tool.
It tells the government that workers are united and serious.
"The government has left us no other choice," DeSousa said. "This is a wake-up call for the government to stop playing games and put a fair offer on the table."
The real deadline is invisible. It is the moment the government decides a strike would cost more than a fair deal. Until then, both sides will keep talking, and 120,000 workers will keep watching.
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