Canada Post receives strike notice from postal workers’ union

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) has issued strike notices to Canada Post, with job action set to begin as early as 12:00 a.m. local time on Friday, May 23, if no agreement is reached.

The notices apply to both urban employees and rural and suburban mail carriers. Canada Post said operations remain normal for now but warned customers to expect possible service delays should rotating strikes begin.

“If CUPW initiates rotating strike activity, we intend to continue delivering in unaffected areas while working to reach agreements,” Canada Post said in a statement.

In the event of a national disruption, Canada Post will stop accepting new mail and parcels and suspend delivery until the strike ends. Any items already in the system will be secured and delivered once operations resume, the agency said.

The looming job action comes as Canada Post grapples with ongoing financial troubles. The organization has posted more than $3 billion in losses since 2018 and expects another significant deficit for 2024. Earlier this year, the federal government pledged up to $1.034 billion in repayable funding to help the corporation avoid insolvency.

Canada Post said it remains committed to reaching deals that protect employee wages and benefits while acknowledging the corporation’s financial challenges.

Canada Post and CUPW received the final report from the Industrial Inquiry Commission (IIC), which was established to review the issues in Canada Post’s collective bargaining dispute with CUPW, as well as the company’s broader challenges.

CUPW said it believes the recommendations are “skewed in favour of Canada Post.”

The report makes seven recommendations it says are necessary to preserve Canada Post as a vital national institution that are regulatory in nature and that also cover collective agreements.

1. Revise the Postal Charter’s delivery standards, end door-to-door delivery, except for businesses;
2. End the moratorium on post office closures and conversion to CMBs;
3. Collective agreements should include all language that was agreed to prior to the strike and what was agreed to in near-final tentative agreements. The parties should also work on narrowing the differences on issues where they are close;
4. For weekend delivery and extra volume during the week, introduce part-time positions with the same working conditions and rates of pay of regular workers, pro rata benefits, and pension – but must not be gig jobs;
5. In the Urban collective agreement, allow for assigning of work for all hours paid;
6. Create a dynamic routing pilot and implement it with the intention of allowing for daily fluctuation in volumes, and;
7. Create a simpler mechanism for stamp price increases.

“These recommendations amount to service cuts, contracting out and major rollbacks to important provisions in our existing collective agreements,” the CUPW said in a statement. “There is also no guarantee that if these changes are made, Canada Post will increase its parcel business.”