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.
"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...
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.