You can’t say whether that’s unfair or not without looking at where they’re starting from. Did they have long pay freezes under past austerity programs? Has the cost of living increased significantly in the primary areas they work? (e.g. how much would a Vancouver school teacher’s pay needed to have gone up over the last 20 years just to live in comparable housing?)

Given that PSAC are asking for 4.5% raises during a period of high inflation I’m skeptical that this is that unreasonable rather than that there’s political hay to be made claiming it is. If they haven’t had cost of living increases for a while, they’ve already effectively had a pay cut.