Canada Post workers began a forced vote to decide on a final contract offer from management July 21, with voting to run until Aug. 1.
The vote, forced by the labour minister, comes after almost 19 months of back-and-forth negotiation and two employee strikes. Canada Post says its operating losses skyrocketed up to $10 million per day last month.
Canada Post is currently offering four-year collective bargaining agreements with 6 percent, 3 percent, and 2 percent wage increases, which the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) says is “barely a raise at all.”
“We hope our employees see these offers provide certainty for the road ahead and vote yes to make them their new collective agreements,” Canada Post spokesperson Phil Legault said in an email statement to The Epoch Times.
The confidential vote run by the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) puts a potential end to negotiations and work stoppages, which Legault says have had a negative impact on Canada Post employees and customers.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) advised its 55,000 members to vote against the new agreement, with one executive saying it’s “a deliberate and calculated strategy to divide us.”
“Canada Post, supported by the federal government, is trying to weaken our union and diminish our bargaining power,” CUPW President Jan Simpson wrote in a July 17 newsletter to members. The July 21 vote is an attempt “to try to push through collective agreements that do not meet the needs of workers,” she added. “It’s a direct attack on all our rights.”
Simpson further said that “this Government has consistently aligned itself with Canada Post” and allowed the Industrial Inquiry Commission to establish “biased terms” to force the new vote July 21.
CUPW members went on strike in November of last year for 32 days, but were subsequently ordered back to work Dec. 17 by CIRB, with another strike announced this past May that was narrowly averted after CUPW reached an agreement to ban all overtime work. The November-December strike led to an estimated $1.6 billion in business disruption. Despite being a Crown corporation, Canada Post is required to survive on its own revenue without taxpayer funding. Despite this, Ottawa gave a $1 billion loan to Canada Post earlier this year to keep it afloat, with the Crown corporation having lost an estimated $3 billion since 2018.
According to Canada Post, the strike around Christmas didn’t only lead to lost revenue but also resulted in many customers switching to “other delivery companies” and “causing volumes to drop significantly.”
“If the vote is positive, the offers become new collective agreements effective until January 31, 2028,” Legault said. “If not, Canada Post won’t speculate other than to say the uncertainty will continue.”
Blacklock’s Reporter contributed to this report.
