Collective Bargaining Breakthrough

The sixties shone forth upon the land with an ever-increasing enhancement of civil liberties. Not so, unfortunately, for government workers toiling on behalf of the people of Canada. To their credit, the Civil Service Federation (CSF) periodically requested some form of collective bargaining.

The 1962 idea requested formal recognition of the staff associations and a seat on the National Joint Council (NJC). Next would be negotiations on service-wide matters between the staff side of the NJC and the Civil Service Commission or Treasury Board. There would also be departmental-level negotiations on problems peculiar to a department with the relevant staff association. Appealing for the National Defence Employees Association (NDEA) since it would allow direct dealings with National Defence.

The government’s response that spring suggested that consultations should only take place between the government and the three service-wide organizations. Neither CSF nor NDEA was happy about that proposal. The latter, in particular, because it precluded any opportunity for departmental negotiations. Fortunately the situation took a turn for the better.

That autumn the Ottawa Citizen offered their support – “In justice the public employees’ case must be given the most sympathetic possible attention by the government. Otherwise they are placed in an inferior position to that of most Canadian workers.”

Even better news came when Prime Minister Lester Pearson announced: “a decision to extend collective bargaining – short of strike action – had been made in Cabinet on Saturday March 9, 1963.” Moving quickly the Government appointed the former Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, Arnold Heeney, to lead a committee to implement collective bargaining in the civil service. At long last, a light could be seen at the end of tunnel.