Summer's over. Tomorrow, most of us go back to commutes we didn't ask for, scrambling for parking at offices we've been mandated into four days a week, doing more with less because the positions beside us keep getting cut, and wondering whether the AI tools being dropped into our workflows are there to help us or replace us.
You already know all of this. You're living it.
Here's the thing: the demoralization is the point. The wage offers you might have seen from PSAC's tables. The RTO mandates that ignore every piece of evidence your own departments produced. The job cuts dressed up as "workforce adjustment." None of this is accidental. A demoralized workforce is easier to manage, easier to underfund, and easier to say no to at the bargaining table.
PSAC is already at the table, and what the government put in front of them should tell you everything about what's coming for us. The offers aren't just low. They're designed to make you stop expecting better.
So, the question for this round isn't just what's in the contract. It's whether we're the kind of union an employer can do this to.
CAPE's open bargaining model means you don't have to wait for someone else to fight this. Every member can take a direct role in what happens at that table. Hundreds already have. Sign up for an article committee to put your hands on the contract itself. Join your organizing committee to connect with coworkers and build the kind of pressure that makes it hard for an employer to say no.
That's the way out of this. Not waiting. Not hoping the next headline is better. Building something together that they have to take seriously.
I'll see you on the streets today.
In solidarity,
Nate Prier
