About us

The Public Service Alliance of Canada represents more than 230,000 members in every province and territory in Canada and in locations around the world.

Our members work for hundreds of different employers from federal government departments and agencies, Crown Corporations, universities, research institutes, museums, community services agencies, Indigenous communities, airports, casinos and the security sector among others.

PSAC is organized along regional lines. Headquartered in Ottawa, there are 23 regional offices across seven regions. The union is connected to the larger Canadian labour movement through our affiliation to the Canadian Labour Congress and Federations of Labour.

PSAC strives to enhance its members' quality of life and over the years the union has been at the front of significant campaigns for workplace, social justice and human rights, including landmark cases on paid maternity leave, pay equity, benefits for same-sex couples and duty to accommodate.

National Capital Region

With offices in Ottawa and Gatineau, PSAC-NCR represents more than 50,000 workers within the private, public and para public sectors.

PSAC-NCR members work for a diversity of employers such as:

• National museums

• House of Commons, Senate and the Library of Parliament

• International Development Research Centre

• Université du Québec en Outaouais (student employees)

• Carleton University (postdoctoral fellows)

• Saint Paul University (part-time faculty)

• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

• National Arts Centre

• Canada Council for the Arts

• Salvation Army

• Royal Canadian Mint

An organizing union

For more than two decades, the Public Service Alliance of Canada has been welcoming union workers who work outside of the federal public service. Most of these workers have been organized into directly chartered Locals.

Unionizing the university sector, fighting precarious work

For years, Canadian universities have relied heavily on the work of contract employees to support academic and research programs.

This led to chronically low wages, precarity, no pensions and few, if any, benefits for many in the sector.

PSAC’s long history of successful organizing drives at Canada’s universities contributed to dramatically improve their working conditions. Members have led the way and achieved great gains. Over time new and improved standards have been negotiated throughout the academic research sector. 

PSAC’s first successful organizing drive in the academic sector saw teaching assistants at Western University join the union in 1996.

PSAC was the first union to file an application for certification for a postdoctoral bargaining unit in Canada in 2010 when unionized academic assistants pursued postdoctoral training and found themselves without union representation. This led to long labour board hearings to determine their employment status.

The acknowledgement of working conditions concerns for full-time research funds employees came earlier with a union drive for Research Associates held in 2007-2008 at Université de Montréal.

Since then, PSAC has organized workers from more than 25 universities across the country.

These members are teaching assistants, research assistants, research associates, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, instructors, residence advisors, floor fellows, invigilators and administrators.

They are organized into over 60 bargaining units.

Governmental Science and Research

PSAC has an excellent understanding of working conditions and issues met by employees in federal research institutes, laboratories, and research & development centres as we represent engineers, technicians or research technologists working across Canada such as:

•  Agriculture and agri-food research centres

• Natural Resources Canada research facilities for innovation on clean energy

•  Fisheries and Oceans Canada science facilities

• Health science & Environmental science centres

• Forestry research

• Innovation Centre to support transportation development and initiatives

• and all laboratories and research facilities managed by the National Research Council