FOG BLOG CANADA LOG: CRA WORKERS REACH AGREEMENT , END STRIKE AND GO BACK TO WORK!

Canada Revenue Agency, union reach deal to end strike Tentative agreement is similar to one struck earlier this week A second strike of federal public servants is over after a tentative deal was reached between the Canada Revenue Agency and more than 35,000 Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) members.

In separate Thursday morning news releases, the agency and PSAC's Union of Taxation Employees (UTE) said the four-year deal sends workers back to their jobs by 11:30 a.m. ET Thursday.

UTE workers, like about 120,000 other PSAC workers across about 30 government departments and agencies, went on strike April 19. They had all been without a deal since 2021.

"Finally, we can say that we got a decent contract for our members, and they deserve it," Marc Brière, national UTE president, told CBC News.

Like the tentative deal announced Monday for the larger group, the headlines of the CRA deal are a compounded wage increase of 12.6 per cent over four years, according to the union, and a one-time pensionable payment of $2,500. UTE had been asking for a series of pay bumps worth more than 30 per cent of current wages, which it later changed to a 22.5 per cent raise over three years.

Similar remote work agreement

Both sides wrote Thursday that the tentative agreement addresses the union's key priorities, listed by the union as remote work, contracted work, working hours and seniority.

The section about remote work in CRA's news release Thursday is nearly identical to Monday's, in which the two sides agreed to a joint review of the directive on telework and to create departmental panels to advise deputy heads about employee concerns.

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Also, it says that workers should be able to start as early as 6 a.m. if it's reasonable for their job, that workers move up to four weeks vacation after seven years of service instead of eight, and that Indigenous employees get paid leave for traditional practices.

The deal lasts until October 2025, PSAC said, and needs to be ratified.