Canada Post has received a strike notice from the union representing postal workers across the country, stating that the workers plan to walk out at midnight Friday.
The strike notice was issued in response to “the employer’s recent indication that it may unilaterally change working conditions and suspend employee benefits,” said the , the union that represents 55,000 postal workers.
Postal workers went on strike on Nov. 15 after failing to reach a deal with Canada Post over key issues, including the size of wage increases and the Corporation’s push to expand weekend delivery.Â
The strike lasted a month before the Canada Industrial Relations Board declared the union and Crown corporation to be at an impasse and ordered workers back on the job, with a deal to be negotiated in the following year.
Canada Post said in a press release on Monday that the work stoppage would affect the millions of Canadians and businesses who typically receive more than two billion letters and roughly 300 million parcels a year via the service — and further strain the corporation’s precarious financial state.
Although Canada Post workers are only days away from returning to the picket lines, the Crown corporation and the CUPW are currently not engaged in contract talks after Canada Post called for a temporary pause in discussions last Wednesday and accused the union of hardening its previous position.
According to a Canada Post statement, the corporation will use this pause to prepare proposals aimed at helping advance negotiations and reach a resolution, but warned that the offers will “reflect the corporation’s current realities.”
The union and Canada Post have until 12:01 a.m. on May 22 to reach a deal to avoid strike activity.
Canada Post said that customers should prepare for possible service delays. “In the event of a national labour disruption, mail and parcels will not be delivered and no new items will be accepted until the disruption is over.”
The news follows a key report last Friday issued by veteran mediator William Kaplan, which states that the Crown corporation is effectively insolvent and should be allowed to close more rural post offices, expand the use of community mailboxes and offer weekend parcel delivery using part-time workers
CUPW slammed most of the recommendations from the report and argued that it “skews heavily in favour of Canada Post’s positions” and rejects the union’s ideas for service expansion as a solution to the corporation’s financial issue.
There’s no guarantee that Canada Post’s parcel business will increase once the changes suggested in the report are implemented, the union said in a statement.Â
Given that the mediator’s report appears to echo Canada Post management’s talking points — and with no pressure from the holiday parcel rush — the union has less bargaining power than the Corporation, said Rafael Gomez, director of the University of Toronto’s Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources.
“If they do choose to go on strike, and the management is not receptive to the demands of the workers, this could be a longer strike than the one we saw in the winter,” Gomez said, adding that if the strike goes long enough, it could lead to some structural changes to Canada Post, with intervention from the federal government.
Last year’s postal strike, which hit just before the holiday season, cost small businesses more than $1 billion in lost revenue and sales, with 79 per cent of small business owners relying on Canada Post to operate, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).
“Businesses are scrambling to deal with a thousand things, and adding a strike to the mix at Canada Post is certainly unwelcome and will be quite economically harmful to tens of thousands of small businesses who still rely on Canada Post for shipments and payments,” said Dan Kelly, the president of CFIB.
Kelly echoes Gomez’s sentiment and said he is “deeply concerned that the strike could be endless at this stage.”
The mediator’s report highlights the need for major reforms at Canada Post, but the government may not view it as a priority while it remains preoccupied with the tariff dispute, Kelly said.
With files from The Canadian Press.
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