6,000 federal government workers on strike in northern Ontario

Some 155,000 federal government workers are on strike across the country as of Wednesday morning, including some 6,000 in northern Ontario. 

This after the Public Service Alliance of Canada could not reach an agreement with government negotiators before the Tuesday night deadline.

There are picket lines up outside of the taxation centre in Sudbury, where there are some 3,000 unionized workers with the Canada Revenue Agency are off the job.

There are also picket lines set up outside of federal government offices in North Bay, Timmins and Kirkland Lake.

The union represents workers in a variety of government departments across the north ranging from Service Canada to Veterans Affairs Canada to the Canada Food Inspection Agency.

Chris Foucault, who represents unionized Canada Revenue Agency workers in the region, said he was "shocked" there wasn't an agreement reached on Tuesday.

He said one of the big issues for his members is that their salaries haven't kept up with the "skyrocketing" cost of living, which essentially means a "pay decrease"

"I hear from hundreds of people a day that are just complaining and wanting to know when we're getting a raise," said Foucault. 

"It's easy to say the wage increase costs taxpayers, but everything the government does costs taxpayers."

Working remotely is also a big issue for taxation workers in Sudbury. Foucault says during the height of the pandemic, some 500 continued to work in the office and he says most of the 3,000 employees continue to work from home. 

"Because we all had to upend our lives when the pandemic hit. We were forced to work from home. Now that people have made these accommodations, they've got rid of their daycare, they home school their children and now they're being forced to come back to the office," he said. 

"It's just not fair to me when we did such a great job for the first three years - now we're being forced back when our lives have been upended by our employer."

Foucault, who says his union was last on strike for two days in 2004, says about 120 members of his members have been deemed essential workers and remain on the job during the strike. 

The union had been asking for a 4.5 per cent pay increase, but said it doesn't want to discuss details of the negotiations, in hopes a deal can still be reached in the coming days.