Canada’s labour minister said the federal government is focused on getting an agreement at the bargaining table as Canada Post workers have walked off the job in a nationwide strike.
“I’m not looking at any other solution other than negotiation,” Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon told reporters in Montreal. “Right now, every day is a new day in collective bargaining and we are going to continue to support the parties in any way we can and make sure they are able to try and get a negotiated agreement.”
Canada Post is warning Canadians will face delays in receiving their mail, and postage already in the system will not be delivered, with a few exceptions after the union said negotiations failed to reach an agreement by Friday.
MacKinnon said that he had directed all resources in his department towards helping the parties reach an agreement, but said he would characterize the negotiations as “extremely difficult.”
“There are many big issues to solve at the table, and not a lot of progress has been made on those big issues,” MacKinnon said.
What does a strike mean for your mail?
The union had delivered a strike notice on Tuesday, warning it would be in a legal position for job action as of 12:01 a.m. Eastern on Friday. When that deadline passed, the union said it had begun strike action.
“Some 55,000 postal workers represented by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) went on a nationwide strike on Friday, November 15 at 12:01am ET,” the CUPW said in a statement on Friday morning.
Canada Post warned in a statement Friday that “customers will experience delays due to the strike activity,” affecting millions of Canadians and businesses. Service to remote and Northern regions that rely on Canada Post deliveries will be shut down.
There will be no delivery of mail or parcels during the strike and some post offices will close, according to the Crown corporation.
Retail analyst Bruce Winder told Global News on Friday that Canadians who need to send letters or packages on a tight turnaround will have to turn to private carriers, but he warned “it’s going to cost a little more.”
“Realistically if you’ve got gifts to send to loved ones, you probably should use alternate methods like the couriers,” he said.
Service guarantees on any items already in the postal system will be affected and no new items will be accepted for mailing until after the strike ends.
However, Canada Post workers will still deliver benefits cheques on Wednesday, Nov. 20, according to a notice posted in the window of a shuttered postal office in Ottawa on Friday.
Nationally, this includes the Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security, Veteran Affairs Pension Plan and the Canada Child Tax Benefit; in Quebec, the provincial pension plan and child assistance payments will still go out; in Alberta, pension cheques from Alberta Seniors will be delivered as usual.
Canada Post warned that any disrupted postage will be delivered on a first-in, first-out basis once operations resume, but warned the impacts will likely be felt in the days after the strike ends.
Why is Canada Post on strike?
CUPW issued a 72-hour notice of strike action on Tuesday, with it entering a legal strike position as of 12:01 a.m. Eastern this morning.
Hours after the union announced its plans earlier this week, Canada Post issued its own notice of lockout to take effect Friday, noting that its collective agreements with both rural and urban workers would no longer apply.
A Canada Post spokesperson told Global News in an email Friday that the shutdown is not considered a lockout.
“This is a work stoppage resulting from CUPW’s decision to launch a nationwide strike. Canada Post was committed to maintaining operations while talks continue,” the statement read.
The CUPW meanwhile said the decision to strike was a “difficult” one that came after a year of bargaining with the employer.
“Canada Post had the opportunity to prevent this strike, but it has refused to negotiate real solutions to the issues postal workers face every day. Instead, Canada Post left us no choice when it threatened to change our working conditions and leave our members exposed to layoffs.”
The statement continued: “Our demands are reasonable: fair wages, safe working conditions, the right to retire with dignity, and the expansion of services at the public post office. Postal workers are proud to serve their communities, and we want to do the job we love. A strike is a last resort. We still believe we can achieve negotiated collective agreements, but Canada Post must be willing to resolve our new and outstanding issues.”
Canada Post said the shutdown comes at a “critical juncture” for the postal service, which has posted losses of more than $3 billion since 2018.
The employer claimed that it has made offers for wage increases of 11.5 per cent over four years in addition to measures protecting defined-benefit pensions and job security.
“To help secure the future of the company and grow our parcel business, Canada Post has put forward proposals to offer seven-day-a-week parcel delivery, more competitive pricing and other important improvements. This new delivery model is essential for the future of the company, and critical to our ability to afford the offers,” the Canada Post statement read.
The union has previously said Canada Post’s offers “fall short.”
CUPW is not convinced that this seven-day delivery plan will protect workers’ regular full-time routes on weekdays.
On short-term disability, CUPW is demanding to include 10 medical days and seven personal days in the collective agreements, but Canada Post refuses to budge from 13 personal days, the union has said.
What could Ottawa do?
This isn’t the first work stoppage at the Crown corporation, with union members having conducted rotating strikes in both 2018 and 2011, and Canada Post locking out employees in the latter case.
In both cases, the federal governments at the time — the Liberals in 2018 and Conservatives in 2011 — passed back-to-work legislation to end the strikes.
Organizations representing businesses have warned of the impact ahead of the holiday season.
Matt Poirier, vice-president of federal government relations for the Retail Council of Canada, told Global News on Wednesday this was the worst time for a work stoppage.
“This is one of the main suppliers for mail delivery for retail,” he said. “It couldn’t come at the worst time during the holiday season.”
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said Thursday it was disappointed about the potential for another work stoppage impacting small businesses and urged both sides to come to an agreement.
MacKinnon has previously said the federal government is hopeful both sides will achieve a deal at the table, adding that Ottawa is providing mediation support to both parties.
If Ottawa were to consider back-to-work legislation, it would need support from either the Bloc Quebecois or Conservatives to pass as the NDP have said they would not vote for such a bill.
The government could also impose binding arbitration to end the work stoppages, as it did earlier this week to end work stoppages at Canada’s largest ports in British Columbia and Quebec.
— with files from Global News’ Saba Aziz