The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) walkout that essentially ended Monday had been brewing since last fall, when PSAC president Chris Aylward declared : “The government can’t expect workers who have been getting us through the pandemic to shoulder the costs of Canada’s recovery.”
Shoulder the costs of Canada’s recovery? Aylward’s PSAC members not only were paid full salary during the pandemic but also thereby added two more years to their generous pension benefits. What about all the private-sector workers who either lost their jobs or were forced to work part-time for lower wages and fewer or no benefits? Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey shows that all of the country’s 206,000 job losses during the pandemic were private-sector workers, while public-sector employment increased by 305,000.
