By Anna Mehler Paperny
(Reuters) -A potential strike by thousands of Canadian border workers is on hold as negotiations with their employer, the federal government, continue through a mediator, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) union said on Friday.
Mediation is scheduled to continue until Wednesday, PSAC said just ahead of Friday afternoon’s strike deadline.
The U.S. is Canada’s biggest trading partner, with an average of C$3.6 billion ($2.62 billion) worth of goods and services crossing the border in both directions combined in 2023, according to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
About 4,870 of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) 5,400 frontline officers are designated essential, meaning they cannot legally stop working, an agency spokesperson said.
But experts said the wide discretion border officers have to stop, question and search travelers could slow down border traffic significantly at airports and land crossings.
That could hit sectors from the automotive industry, which relies on a just-in-time supply chain, to the food industry, which deals in perishable goods, said Fraser Johnson, a business professor at Western University.
“If you’re trying to ship lettuce into Canada (and) you get held up at the border, it has a shelf life. It becomes problematic,” he said.
“It’s not that the border is going to be shut down. (Goods are) just not going to get through as quickly.”
The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters association said it fears potential business disruptions.
“Extended delays will disrupt operations and production schedules, harming manufacturers, and their workers,” President Dennis Darby said.
Last year, a strike upended operations at Canadian west-coast ports. There are also potential labor stoppages by Canada’s rail workers and at the Port of Montreal, Darby said.
“Manufacturers kind of treat the (Canada-U.S.) border as if it isn’t there, so anything that happens to disrupt that, it starts to affect production,” he said.
Two options for the government, said Carleton University associate professor of management Ian Lee, are binding arbitration or, as a last resort, back-to-work legislation.
Sticking points between the workers and government include wages, remote work, retirement benefits and workplace protections, according to PSAC.