Hundreds of workers at cybersecurity agency vote to strike
cbc.ca
cbc.ca
The idea of striking is to force the company to raise prices or cut management salary and give more to workers, so it's a type of political battle over the economic surplus created by the firm. That makes sense in, say, a factory or business where there is a surplus to be fought over.
But Government agencies have no surpluses, they run deficits and they have management salaries set by law, so things are pretty much take it or leave it.
On the other hand, workers in these companies benefit from a host of legal protections and legally encoded pay scales so the usual method is to sue that some worker protection was being violated or that a promotion to a higher pay bracket was unfairly withheld. Private sector workers tend not to have these types of regulated interactions with employers and so for them striking is a more appropriate option.
Where you see government unions more is in local government, so say teachers can threaten to go on strike unless the city council raises taxes or cuts some other program to divert more to them. That obviously has disadvantages as it means the less unionized budgets get less funding and its hard for smaller departments to defend their budgets vis-a-vis departments with more union members. Federal government workers, OTOH, which must be funded by Congress and signed by the Executive, are in a different boat as they have less power to threaten Congress than a local government. In either case, the unions are not striking against the management of the agency, so it is not a typical strike. They are striking against the funding authority, so it's not the classical case of a class struggle over the producer surplus. Rather, it's a struggle between workers and taxpayers, not workers and management. The private sector equivalent would be a firm refusing to produce goods if consumers didn't buy them. If that firm was a monopoly. And consumers were legally forced to buy the goods via taxes. Not at all the same thing!
In terms of is there a right to strike, well anyone can quit or refuse to work whenever they want. And they can even organize their coworkers to quit en masse. That's not in dispute. The dispute is whether the company can fire them for not working. Saying that a worker has a "right" to strike is a very oblique way of saying that a company does not have a right to fire a worker that doesn't show up to work.
Now, it's not at all clear why the government, especially critical agencies in the government that provide security for the nation, shouldn't have this right.
Imagine if a fireman said they wouldn't put out a fire unless you paid him more. Wouldn't a normal person respond by saying "Why did you agree to take the job? Why not quit and let someone else, who is willing to do the job, do it? Why hold me hostage?" Or a policeman going on strike and refusing to respond to a call until the citizens of the town voted to increase police pay. Well the money that pays government workers is money from citizens, not some economic profit created by the production process, so demanding more of this money and preventing the agencies from operating until more is voted by the legislature is a pretty unpopular stance except in the most pro-union sliver of the electorate.
That may be true in other countries. In Canada, our Federal government employees are part of a union that comprises 200,000 employees.
The rest of what you wrote is a very American perspective on public service, unions, and payroll structures that is almost entirely irrelevant to a discussion of Canadian government agencies.
As for your last paragraph, it's easy to imagine firefighters and police officers going on strike, because they do (at least here). So do our bus drivers and other critical employees; it's just done in a way that affects people, but with plans in place to reduce impacts to safety.
"Government employees — state, local, and federal — do not have a right to strike under the federal law."(1)
For local government, it would depend on which state you are in. 8 states do provide some rights to their state and local employees to strike, 42 states do not.(1)
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(1) See https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/20/20873867/w...
If CSE employees don't find the salary competitive now, you can almost be certain that 9/10 people working there in a few years time will be on much higher contractor rates.
[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-average-defense-depart... (these figures are extremely conservative as they're from 2015, not specific to high demand ICT jobs, and also without the scarcity in the job market that a TS/SCI clearance creates)
Work to rule is another way to do it. I personally find the concept hilarious.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada represents 2,400 employees working in cryptography, applied mathematics, advanced language analysis and cybersecurity at the Communications Security Establishment (CSE).
I think some of those 2,400 union dues paying members might have taken steps to make sure they were doing things in a way that is reasonably secure... I do wonder how many other unions have that many folks able to help out.
People in the military aren't "free", by the rules of the military, in the way that private citizens are - the military is a dictatorship, and disobeying is, under their rules, a crime.
I, too, was surprised that this is a thing that can happen.
the NSA is a division of the DoD, it is based on a Military Base, and it has many military officers in high ranking positions
if it acts like a duck, talks likes a Duck, calling it s something else does not make it anything other than a duck, this NSA for all practical purpose is part of the military.
They say it is military when they need it to be, and civilian when they need it to be based on what oversight and regulations, and constitutional limits they are trying to get around at any given time
Did Snowden "not follow an order" or did he do something explicitly already illegal according to civilian law.
Also note that if captured he's not going to face a court martial, he's going to face the normal civilian legal system.
I think "not military" fits pretty well.
Years ago I was going to work for CSIS (Canadian Secret Intelligence Service. Their offer was 90% of my base salary, a 25% bonus pool, and benefits that clearly brought my total compensation well above my situation. I have friends who have made that decision - they're paid quite competitively, the published Sunshine List illustrates this.
They link to two unrelated stories directly after. In a search about it, I see claims that Russians tried to steal Canadian research, not disrupt it.
If that helpful research data were shared, and if the electricity infrastructure they imply is under attack were taken offline, then they'd reduce the attack surface. Which would reduce the cost of defensive measures.
I wonder how much that's brought up in these negotiations.
So... quit and work in the private sector then?
There is a woeful lack of cyber security acumen in government to actually amp up their hiring practices and strategy.
And yes, mandatory ethics courses are an important part of helping people to understand the difference between unethical and ethical behaviour, especially if they can't or didn't learn that on their own. It's why ethics training is both offered and required in many professional roles.
They're spying or supporting those doing spying, right?
Debatable.