But, when negotiations quickly broke down again,PSAC members returned to the picket line. In the February 1991 budget, the Conservative government instituted wage controls on public servants and threatened workers with severe job losses should they reject these controls. Despite the current recession and an inflation rate hovering at 6.4 percent, the federal government offered public servants no salary increase this year and only the possibility of a 3 percent increase the following year. According to the government's proposal, every 1 percent wage increase will be accompanied by the elimination of 2,000 jobs. Public servants will now be forced to choose between small pay increases that do not keep pace with inflation or jobs for their neighbors.
Workers say the government's proposal is woefully inadequate.
In addition to higher wages, the PSAC is demanding that the government fairly compensate women workers. More than half of the union's members are women working in undervalued jobs. Despite pay equity legislation passed in 1977, the government has failed to take any voluntary action to fulfil its obligations under the law. In fact, the government is now fighting a 1990 Canadian Human Rights Commission ruling that pay adjustments made for the three female-dominated bargaining groups are unacceptable. In spite of its legal responsibility to institute pay equity, the government continues to deny female employees fair salaries and to operate the largest female job ghetto in Canada.