To be able to vote on the path that bargaining takes (conciliation or arbitration) members must attend one of the sessions on the dispute mechanism to hear the presentation and the recommendations from the collective bargaining committee.

This is one of the most important and influential decisions CAPE members will make this round of bargaining and it needs to be an informed decision. The chosen path determines what happens over the next one to two years and what is or isn’t possible in bargaining.

To figure out the best way to do that, CAPE consulted other unions like PSAC and analyzed their voting rules.

Other unions, like PSAC, CUPW, etc., have mandatory attendance requirements for important votes related to bargaining. Other important votes include ratifying a tentative agreement or taking job action. They recognize that decisions of this magnitude, that affect everyone, need to be discussed, debated, and decided together.

In arbitration, when both parties cannot reach an agreement, the outstanding issues are sent to an independent arbitrator, who reviews both sides' arguments and makes a binding decision on what goes into your collective agreement.

You are very unlikely to win anything new or precedent-setting this way, like telework rights, because arbitrators usually do not award new rights. Instead, they usually award a contract that is based on the average of what other similar unions have already bargained.

That decision is final. There is no membership ratification vote — negotiations end, and whatever the arbitrator decides becomes your contract.

Either side — the union or the employer — can trigger the beginning of the actual arbitration process. In exchange for access to arbitration, members give up the right to take job action (slowdowns, walk-in, refusal of overtime, strike etc.) if the employer will not change its position and a deal cannot be reached.

Under the conciliation route, if an impasse is declared, a Public Interest Commission (PIC) is established to help the parties reach an agreement. The PIC is a panel of one or three people – a chairperson appointed by the Labour Board and nominees appointed by the union and management. The union and the employer submit briefs and explain their positions on the outstanding issues at a hearing with the PIC.

The PIC then issues a report with recommendations for settlement. The recommendations are not binding. Once the PIC releases its report, the union’s bargaining committee will meet to discuss the recommendations and next steps. Often, following the release of a PIC report, the two sides return to the table in a further attempt to reach a settlement.

Under conciliation both parties may still send outstanding issues to arbitration by mutual agreement. It is called “alternate dispute resolution” at this point.

If an agreement still cannot be reached, members then have the option to hold an all-bargaining unit employees vote and to take job action (work-to-rule, slowdowns, refusal of overtime, strike etc.)

In the Canadian federal public sector, an impasse means the union and employer have reached a point in bargaining where they cannot get to a tentative agreement through negotiations alone. It’s when the parties cannot move forward with bargaining either because a party has no mandate or there’s no way to reach an agreement on issues.

It usually comes after multiple bargaining rounds of bargaining, exchanges of proposals, counterproposals, withdrawals, modifications, and attempts to narrow the issues, because bargaining is normally a back-and-forth process where each side tests priorities and trades movement on some demands for movement on others. Think about negotiating the price of a car or a house: you may not want to pay the asking price, so you’ll need to decide how many counteroffers to make and when to walk away.

In the conciliation route, either the union or employer can declare an impasse when they are unable to reach an agreement.

When the parties reached an impasse, and request conciliation, the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board (FPSLREB) can delay establishing a Public interest Commission (PIC) until they are satisfied that the parties have bargained “sufficiently and seriously". The Chairperson can encourage the parties to resume negotiations or work with a mediator.

In the arbitration route, if the parties cannot reach a tentative agreement, either party may ask the FPSLREB to establish an arbitration board, which issues a binding decision. 

The collective bargaining committee is recommending the conciliation path for two reasons. The first is that some of the priority issues that members have chosen, like telework, cannot be won through arbitration. The other reason is that conciliation will ensure we have a wide array of options at the bargaining table to secure the strongest possible collective agreement. The open bargaining model allows for more member participation. The goal is to put more pressure on the employer to take us seriously. Being on the conciliation route, will add another tool to exercise the pressure.

Most federal public sector workers are on the conciliation path this round — approximately 177,000 workers on conciliation, compared to roughly 33,000 workers on arbitration, with another 53,000 workers still to be determined, over half of whom are ECs represented by CAPE.  

For a full breakdown by union and bargaining group, see our analysis.
 

There's a full spectrum of options for job action, from lightest to most significant: 

• Work-to-rule is the lightest form and doesn't interrupt pay. Employees do their jobs exactly as outlined by contract or job description, precisely following all safety and other regulations. This causes a slowdown or decrease in productivity because workers are no longer working during breaks or unpaid extended hours (no checking email after hours, etc.). A great question to consider is, what would this look like for your department? With all the cuts and increased workload, would this be an effective tactic? 
• Strategic strike involves 10% of the bargaining unit at a limited number of key locations designed to have the greatest impact on the employer's operations.  
  Example: in 2022 the BC General Employees' Union had a small number of workers picket at BC Liquor Distribution Branch warehouses, forcing liquor stores to ration sales — after two weeks the government returned to the table with a fair offer. 
• Rotating strike is a series of surprise work stoppages at strategic geographic locations, usually lasting one day. Members in Ontario on Monday, Quebec on Tuesday, and so on. Often used in the public sector — minimizes service disruption while keeping employers guessing. 
• General strike is a full work stoppage by all bargaining unit members at the same time. This is what most people picture when they hear 'strike' — but it's one of many tools, not the only one.  

As for how CAPE would decide to go on strike... 

The collective bargaining committee would determine negotiations are at an impasse and cannot be resolved on their own. Then they would go through a non-binding arbitration process (conciliation) with the Public Interest Commission (PIC), which hears from both sides and makes a recommendation for how to resolve outstanding issues.  

If an agreement still cannot be reached, the bargaining committee would then make a recommendation to the NEC and CAPE president to call for a vote of all bargaining unit members. A majority of all members of that bargaining unit would then have to vote in favor before a strike could be possible.  

Again, a strike can involve a range of actions—for example, targeted activities in specific workplaces or a full walking off the job at sites across the country. 

Keep in mind, a strike is the nuclear option. Choosing conciliation does not automatically mean CAPE will go on strike. Most unions negotiate their collective agreements on the conciliation path without ever taking a strike vote.

CAPE has been steadily rebuilding its defence fund since 2024. That year, members voted in favour of a special levy to increase the fund to $8 million. As an affiliate of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), the largest labour federation in the country, CAPE also has access to CLC’s defence fund if needed.

Should a strike vote ever take place, it would not happen for more than a year, leaving even more time to build up CAPE’s own funds.

What is work-to-rule? Work-to-rule is job action in which employees do their jobs exactly as outlined by the rules of their contract or job description, and precisely follow all safety or other regulations and manuals which may cause a slowdown or decrease in productivity as they are no longer working during breaks or during unpaid extended hours and weekends (checking email, for instance).  Notable examples have included nurses refusing to answer telephones, teachers refusing to work for free at night and during weekends and holidays, and police officers refusing to issue citations. Refusal to work overtime, travel on duty, or sign up to other tasks requiring employee assistance are other manifestations of using work-to-rule.  In a sense, "work-to-rule" involves applying to the-letter rules that are normally set aside or interpreted less literally to increase efficiency or refraining from activities which are customary but not required by rule or job description. Work-to-Rule should in no way jeopardize the safety and security of Canada. All duties relating to the safety and security of Canada are essential and in fact should be done with more diligence and in line with all enforcement manuals and legislation.

Work-to-rule is a form of strike action — and under the arbitration path, it's not a legal option.

Federal legislation broadly prohibits strikes, at minimum during the life of a collective agreement and outside designated strike periods. For essential service employees and those under Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, strikes are prohibited entirely. That matters here, because the definition of a strike is wider than most people expect.

Under the FPSLRA (S 2), a strike is defined as: 

a cessation of work or a refusal to work or to continue to work by persons employed in the public service, in combination, in concert or in accordance with a common understanding, and a slow-down of work or any other concerted activity on the part of such persons that is designed to restrict or limit output.

In plain terms: If a group of employees act together toward the same goal in a way that refuses, slows down, or limits work output — that's a strike. Partial strikes count too, including refusing only certain duties. Even refusing voluntary work, like overtime, counts if it's done collectively. Outside a legal strike period, any of this would be an illegal strike and could trigger unfair labour practice complaints or discipline and fines for individual members.

The union also faces separate restrictions: counselling, encouraging, or procuring an illegal strike is itself prohibited — which significantly limits what the union can say or do if members start moving in this direction.

The case law backs up just how broad this is. Refusing overtime, boycotting training, refusing certain duties, refusing to cross picket lines, and general work-to-rule have all been found to constitute strike action.

As of now, CAPE National has not seen a confirmed change to the factors. However, because the government has signaled that it may seek to change or place greater emphasis on how fiscal considerations are weighed in arbitration this year, it could still introduce such changes through another bill in 2026 or 2027— right as federal public service workers are bargaining. That uncertainty matters. It is another example of the employer creating confusion in a bargaining year.

More details:  

In Budget 2025, the government announced that it intended to introduce amendments to the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act that would affect the collective bargaining dispute resolution framework. The budget language said public sector compensation should align with Canadian labour market trends and the government’s fiscal position.

However, that change was not included in Bill C-15, the Budget 2025 implementation bill. Bill C-15 received Royal Assent on March 26, 2026, and the public summary of the bill lists other public sector measures, including early retirement measures connected to workforce reduction, but not a change to the FPSLRA arbitration rules.

That does not mean the issue is gone for good. Governments sometimes announce proposed changes in a budget and then do not include them in the first budget implementation bill. Sometimes those proposals are delayed, dropped, tested publicly, or brought forward later through another bill. The concern is that while this was not passed as part of the budget bill, the government could still introduce it in another bill this year or next year.  

It is also important to know that arbitrators are already required under the current FPSLRA to consider several factors when making an arbitral award, including recruitment and retention, comparability with similar jobs, fairness based on the work performed, and “the state of the Canadian economy and the Government of Canada’s fiscal circumstances.”
 

Currently, CAPE is covered by the National Joint Council (NJC) WFA Directive until we negotiate a new process into the collective agreement. The Directive covers the process but it's full of gaps and those gaps hurt members at the moments that matter most. The NJC process is somewhat cumbersome and we decided to leave the NJC WFA Directive and negotiate our own, so CAPE members would be driving the changes they need.

Right now, SERLO decisions are employer-driven and subjective. If you are trying to alternate, for example, if the only available match is in a different region, you may be expected to relocate to take it.

PSAC bargains WFA protections directly into their collective agreements rather than relying solely on the NJC Directive — and they're bringing proposals to their tables right now. PSAC is proposing to prevent forced relocations and increase the use of remote work to prevent layoffs — so a geographic mismatch doesn't turn a job-saving option into a forced move.

PSAC's proposals fix the specific problems: equitable seniority-based SERLO, remote work as a tool to prevent forced relocations during alternation, better access to voluntary departure programs, and an education allowance increase from $17,000 to $25,000.

The PSAC WFA Agreement is separate from the NJC WFA Directive — so improvements they win at their tables don't automatically flow to us. But it shows what's possible when unions bargain WFA directly. We can do the same at our table. To get there, we need leverage.