Not only is it a pay hike they want, and quite a good one. They want to be able to work from home.
Think about it for a minute. Do we really want them to work on sensitive files, containing personal information, which could be severely damaging for an individual, if it ends up in the wrong hands, and do this from home? Sure, highly secured VPNs etc but who says other people could be there and access these files. Be it CRA or IRCC working on my stuff.
I’m certainly not OK with it.
It seems to be their big ticket item that they can’t get through, but is a deal breaker in negotiations.