Article content

Department of National Defence employees blocked one of the entrances to CFB Esquimalt on Thursday to denounce a Liberal government deal with a French company and ongoing problems with the Phoenix pay system.

Around 150 members of the Union of National Defence Employees (UNDE) blocked the road leading to the main entrance of the base for about an hour.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or DND employees block base entrance in protest against contracting out, Phoenix pay problems Back to video

They were protesting against the Liberal government’s recently announced a $5.2-billion deal to privatize maintenance of the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships and the Joint Support Ships.

Subsidiaries of the French defence firm, Thales, were awarded the contract.

The Union of National Defence Employees say the deal is a risk since it could jeopardize national security and could mean a loss of jobs for public servants who now maintain government ships.

John MacLennan, who whose last day as UNDE president was Thursday, said the union expects the Liberals to try to contract out more federal jobs. He accused the Trudeau government of continuing the privatization agenda started by the previous Conservative government.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has said no public service jobs will be lost because of the privatization of ship maintenance.

Protesters were also angry at the continuing Phoenix pay fiasco. Thousands of federal public servants are still dealing with pay problems despite claims by the Liberal government that the pay system problems are being dealt with. “You can’t eat an IOU,” the crowd chanted.

UNDE is holding its national convention in Victoria, BC and many of the protesters were delegates from that event.

The crowd was boisterous but peaceful.