Inside the long, hard battle between Canada Post and CUPW

Contract negotiations for postal workers are dragging past the 18-month mark as the corporation and union battle over the future of Canada Post.

The impasse comes six months after a one-month strike by postal workers, who were ordered back to work with an extended contract by the Canada Industrial Relations Board to allow the two sides to return to bargaining.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has now returned to job action with an overtime ban.

“We knew all along we might strike again,” Anju Parmar, president of CUPW Vancouver Local 846 said. “We have the same demands on the table. Nothing has been resolved.”

Meanwhile, the Canada Post Corp. has presented the union with what it calls its final offer.

Negotiations are deadlocked over the corporation’s proposals to create a second class of part-time workers to help it compete with gig-work giants like Amazon.

One researcher says the deadlock underscores a fundamental disagreement over the direction of the postal service — and what happens next will set the tone for Canada Post’s future.

Months of job action

Canada Post is a Crown corporation owned by the federal government. It owns a majority share in the private logistics corporation Purolator.

Negotiations between the postal service and the union started on Nov. 15, 2023. Collective agreements between Canada Post and CUPW expired on Dec. 31, 2023, for the rural and suburban bargaining unit and on Jan. 31, 2024, for the urban unit.

One year after negotiations started, approximately 55,000 postal workers from both bargaining units across the country walked off the job.

On Dec. 15, then-labour minister Steven MacKinnon directed the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order employees back to work after it determined the two sides were at an impasse.

Canada Post and CUPW agreed to implement a five per cent wage increase and extend the existing collective agreements until May.

CUPW’s Parmar said negotiations are still at an impasse.

The corporation is offering a four-year collective agreement with wage increases of six per cent in the first year, three per cent in the second year and two per cent in each of the remaining two years. It’s also offering signing bonuses of $500 and $1,000 depending on job classifications and extra payments to workers if inflation reaches 7.16 per cent.

The offer also removed the corporation’s proposal for compulsory overtime.

According to the federal jobs bank, letter carriers in Canada make between $22 and $32 per hour.

Parmar said the corporation still wants to extend delivery service to the weekend, implement a two-tier benefits system and create a new class of employees who would work flexible, part-time hours — approximately 15 hours per week, according to Parmar.

She said the union is not against weekend delivery. But Parmar said she is worried creating a second tier of employees with different benefits and hours will allow the corporation to increase its use of part-time workers, instead of creating full-time jobs.

“If there are more part-time jobs than full-time jobs in the future, that will impact the workers,” Parmar said. “We cannot sell our future workers for our own benefit.”

Parmar added the union is also adamantly opposed to the corporation’s proposal for “dynamic routing” and “flex delivery” — two provisions that would allow management to make real-time adjustments to workers’ routes and package loads.

“It’s like taking work away from one person and giving it to others,” Parmar said, adding it would also mean postal workers do not get overtime work.

Parmar added a representative from CUPW National would be better suited to speak to the state of negotiations. CUPW did not provide a representative of the national union for an interview.

Enda Brophy, a labour researcher at Simon Fraser University, said these non-wage provisions are high stakes and of “existential” importance for Canada Post.

“I think what we’re seeing in these negotiations is a clash of visions over the direction that Canada Post takes,” Brophy said in an email.

He said Canada Post leadership aims to be competitive with Amazon. The private logistics company hires primarily gig workers to fulfil deliveries.

“What this strategy reveals is an utter lack of imagination, envisioning Canada Post as a private carrier rather than a public service,” Brophy said.

Instead, Brophy recommends the corporation prioritize its role as a public service and consider business solutions tabled by the union — including a proposal that the postal service expand into public banking to increase its revenue.

Union restarts strike action

A CUPW spokesperson said in an email that while the overtime ban “is a continuation of our strike activity from December, postal workers will remain on the job to minimize disruption to the public.”

The union says the corporation’s latest offer does not address the union’s core concerns about flexible part-time staffing.

CUPW president Jan Simpson said in a statement that the union would not accept the dynamic routing model or part-time flexible staffing.

“Canada Post is not negotiating,” Simpson said. “Canada Post is playing hardball.”

On May 31, the union called for Canada Post Corp. to enter binding arbitration to finally end the dispute.

Canada Post rejected the proposal. In a statement on its website, the corporation said arbitration would be long and complicated, likely lasting more than a year.

The corporation instead called for the minister of jobs and families, Patty Hajdu, to direct the Canada Industrial Relations Board to force an employee vote on Canada Post’s final offer.

In an email to The Tyee, Hajdu said she asked Canada Post and CUPW to return to the bargaining table with federal mediators to negotiate terms for arbitration that would end this round of bargaining.

She also asked the union to table its response to the corporation’s last offer.

“Arbitration is not the preferred path to an agreement for either side, and each will have priorities it wants recognized,” Hajdu said.

“Attempts to negotiate a settlement must continue. Canadians expect the parties to resolve this dispute one way or another.”

Lisa Liu, a spokesperson for Canada Post, said in an email that the corporation is ready to quickly return to the table.

She added that Canada Post would prefer a negotiated settlement and looks forward to receiving the union’s response to its final offer.

“After 18 months at an impasse, all options must be considered to address these critical priorities, including an employee-directed vote,” Liu said.

On Thursday, a union spokesperson said in an email that it welcomes the minister’s recognition that negotiated settlements are better.

Isaac Phan Nay-Local Journalism Initiative Reporter-The Tyee