OTTAWA – The federal government is preparing back-to-work legislation for Canada Post, setting the stage for a resumption of mail service as early as next week.
Labour Minister Lisa Raitt informed the House on Wednesday she was tabling notice of intention to introduce back-to-work legislation, meaning the bill could be up for a vote next week.
“(The strike) is now affecting the Canadian economy and it has an effect on third-party Canadians who are not part of this dispute, but are the ones who are suffering from the hardship,” Raitt said.
The day before, Raitt served the same notice on striking customer service agents and other staff at Air Canada.
Under the rules of the House, the government must give 48 hours of notice before it can introduce new legislation. With Parliament not sitting on Friday, the bills are expected to be debated next week.
But the government has said it still hopes the striking parties will take advantage of the remaining few days to redouble efforts to reach a deal before legislation is needed.
The federal government legislated striking postal workers back to work in 1997 – the last time the union went on strike – after they were off the job two weeks.
Both the NDP and Liberals said they would oppose the legislation, although their opposition can only delay, not thwart the majority government.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has also said it doesn’t want to be ordered back to work, blaming Canada Post for escalating the dispute Tuesday night by locking out the workers and suspending service in urban centres nationwide.
If it was intended to get the government to act, it worked.
Raitt had eschewed intervention when the union began rotating strikes on June 3, and did not seem willing to act when the Crown corporation said it would restrict mail service in cities to three days a week. But after Tuesday night, things changed.
“There’s a cessation of mail delivery, that’s different than rolling strikes, that’s different than cutting back on the mail service,” she said.
Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton denied the lockout was intended to pressure the government into action, but admitted the negotiations were going nowhere. He said the firm decided to suspend most mail delivery to bring a “sense of urgency” to the talks.
The current situation had begun untenable, he said, because Canada Post had already lost about $100 million and uncertainty was crippling the system.
The two sides had been in formal bargaining for seven months before the union of 48,000 employees began rolling work stoppages June 3.
Hamilton said the main sticking point was the union’s demand for staffing levels beyond the capability of Canada Post, adding wages were not the key disagreement. The union has been emphasizing working conditions and safety issues, as well as arguing that new employees would receive inferior wages and pensions.
“If this was about wages it would have been settled a long time ago,” said Hamilton. “This is about the union asking us to bring on additional postal employees with all the benefits to cut the grass and shovel the snow, about stopping investments we’ve made in terms of modernizing.”
Those are the types of demands Canada Post “can’t even entertain,” he added.
An official with CUPW said the union was preparing a reaction to the back-to-work legislation Wednesday afternoon, but earlier in the day president Denis Lemelin said the government should not interfere.
At a news conference, Lemelin instead called for a one-on-one meeting with Canada Post chief executive Deepak Chopra as a way to break the impasse. And he asked the post office to commit to deliver social assistance and other cheques on Monday.
Lemelin accused Canada Post of acting “irresponsibly” by shutting down most operations, saying the union’s tactic of rotating strikes was designed to ensure minimum disruption to the public.
“Today, all postal workers were ready – the letter carriers as well – to distribute the mail everywhere in the country,” he said.
“We were truly fulfilling our commitment to see to it that the public receives their mail.”
He reiterated his offer to have postal workers return under the conditions of the expired contract.
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