The Federation of Labour says a government that would protect workers is what motivated a lot of voters heading into the last federal election but, in the end, what Canadians got was another Conservative government.

President Jessica McCormick says Mark Carney’s Liberals are taking a much more conservative approach to its relationship with the public sector.

Carney’s first budget outlined plans to cut the federal public service by 16,000 positions over the next three years. That came after government introduced legislation forcing Canada Post employees back to work.

McCormick says it’s part of a troubling trend for public sector workers.

“What we’re getting now,” says McCormick, “is what people were trying to prevent from happening, which was a federal Conservative government.”  She says the way Ottawa has approached collective bargaining and back to work legislation “is much more aligned with what we’ve seen Conservative governments do historically.”