Canada border officers to begin work slowdown

Nearly 9,000 Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) personnel will begin a work-to-rule strike on Friday, their union said, warning that the labor action could have a “dramatic impact to Canada’s supply chain” and imperil the government’s plans to reopen the border to U.S. travelers. 

The Public Service Alliance of Canada and its Customs and Immigration Union issued a work-to rule strike notice on Tuesday and said the labor action will begin at 6 a.m. Friday unless an agreement on a new contract is reached. It comes as the union and the workers’ employer, the Treasury Board of Canada, agreed to return to the bargaining table on Friday. 

The labor action stops short of a full strike. But the union said its impact would be felt at all of Canada’s ports of entry, hitting everything from port container operations to cross-border trucking.

“During work-to-rule strike action, CBSA employees will obey all of the policies, procedures and laws applying to their work, and perform their duties to ’the letter of the law,’” the Public Service Alliance of Canada and Customs and Immigration Union said in a statement. “This may cause long and unavoidable delays at Canada’s borders as workers carry out their jobs as they were trained to do.”

The union may be trying to work around the legal constraints of a regular strike. CBSA personnel who perform essential duties, including front-line officers, are barred from going on strike. However, the definition of essential doesn’t include collection of duties and taxes and maintaining stakeholder relations, according to a federal labor tribunal ruling.