Last Friday marked the beginning of the Black Friday online shopping week, but because of the ongoing, nationwide Canada Post workers’ strike, some may have to wait for their parcels.
Canada Post claims to be down 10 million parcels since the strike began—which is now on its 11th day.
They also say that impacts of the strike will continue to be felt by millions across the country until it can be resolved.
However, both Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) remain at the bargaining table, and are being aided in finding a resolution by a government-appointed mediator.
“Talks continued over the weekend but progress was limited,” said Canada Post in a negotiations update.
“We continued to try and move forward with urgency on changes to our delivery model that would provide weekend delivery and more flexible staffing during the week.”
Canada Post says that CUPW have been focussed on other issues. One such issue is hiring the people who work for our contracted facility cleaning service and making them full-time.
Another issue CUPW brought to the bargaining table was largely pushing back on changes to the pay and benefits of people we’ll hire in the future.
Canada Post claims to be protecting workers’ competitive wage increases, additional paid leave, benefit pension and job security through the negotiations process, but CUPW is reporting that some workers on the picket line have begun receiving layoffs.
“In several regions across the country, Canada Post has been calling CUPW members to lay them off,” said Carl Girouard, National Grievance Officer for CUPW.
“While some are saying it is temporary, we’ve heard stories that it may be more permanent. These types of phone calls are merely a scare tactic by Management.”
Additionally, Canada Post is claiming severe losses in recent years, which they say is largely due to labour costs.
However, CUPW says that Canada Post is not telling the whole story.
“The reported losses published over the last few years don’t tell the whole story,” wrote a CUPW spokesperson in a media release.
“Canada Post has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to grow its parcel business, yet overall labour costs have decreased during the last few years.”
CUPW also noted that Canada Post is a public service, and not meant to be profit driven.
They added that Canada Post could recover from their current financial situation by investing in new revenue-generating services like postal banking and senior-check-in services.
CUPW says these methods have helped mitigate losses in other global postal services.
The union’s main goals in these negotiations are to get workers fair wages, safe working conditions, the right to retire with dignity and the ensure the expansion of services at post offices are reasonable ones.
More to come on Canada Post’s negotiations with CUPW as details become available.
