Canada’s minister of jobs and families, Patty Hajdu, has approved Canada Post’s request for the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) to vote on its final offers, announced on May 28, in a bid to bring 18 months of unsuccessful negotiations to an end.
According to Canada Post, the vote will be administered by the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) as soon as possible and will give employees in the urban and RSMC (rural and suburban mail carriers) bargaining units the opportunity to have their say on Canada Post’s final offers.
The company said it “stands ready to work with the CIRB to prepare for the vote and will share details as soon as they are available”.
The post also stated it welcomed the minister’s decision, “as it will provide employees with the opportunity to have a voice and to vote on a new collective agreement at a critical point in the company’s history.
“A negotiated agreement between the parties has always been the preferred path to an employee ratification vote,” Canada Post stated on its website. “However, the parties remain at a major impasse after 18 months of negotiations, a national strike and an Industrial Inquiry Commission that detailed the challenges facing the company, and what needs to be done to begin addressing them.”
Push for a ‘no’ vote from union
However, the announcement that the government had once again stepped in to help resolve the issues between Canada Post and CUPW was met negatively by the union.
In a statement on its website, the CUPW said, “The minister’s decision is yet another assault on our collective bargaining rights; just the latest we have faced in a matter of just months. In December, former minister of labour, Steven MacKinnon, used section 107 to put our legal strike on ‘pause’ and section 108 to strike an Industrial Inquiry Commission (IIC).”
The statement continued, “These repeated government attacks have poisoned the bargaining process. The government’s actions have not helped to bring this impasse closer to a resolution. They have only pushed us further down the road.
“In all instances, the government has assisted with the employer: ‘pausing’ our legal strike action, establishing an IIC with terms favoring the employer’s positions, and now forcing a vote against the union’s clear opposition.
“We will not stand by as the government and Canada Post work together to try to undermine our hard-fought rights, gut our collective agreements and rewrite them on their own terms. Postal workers know how to fight back. We’ve done it before, and we’re ready to do it again.
“CUPW will call all on all postal workers to stand together and vote no to the employer’s offers.”
According to Canada Post’s latest financial results, the labor disruption in the last quarter of 2024 contributed an estimated net negative impact of C$208m (US$150m) toward Canada Post’s overall C$841m loss before tax