Canada Post delivered its latest contract offer to striking postal workers Friday, but it doesn’t seem likely to end a dispute that has dragged on for more than 20 months.
The new offer includes three major steps back from the Crown corporation’s “final” offer rejected by members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers in August: It removes a signing bonus, lays the groundwork for major layoffs, and targets almost 500 urban and suburban post offices for potential closure.
“Canada Post’s new offers are within the limit of what the corporation can afford while maintaining good jobs and benefits for employees over the long-term,” Canada Post said in a written statement.
In a memo posted on the union’s website, the head of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) slammed the offer and the federal government for giving the Crown corporation the green light last week for a major restructuring.
“We had expected that Canada Post would return to the table and make significant movement so that our members could ratify their offers. Instead, it chose to use the government’s announcement last week to take major steps backwards,” said CUPW national president Jan Simpson. “We waited 45 days for offers that are worse than what we rejected in August. Canada Post must have known that there is no way we can accept these.”
The union wants “stability” for its workers, their families, and the public, said Simpson.
“But Canada Post seems hell bent on making workers’ pay for the financial crisis it created, and trying to turn the public against the very workers who keep this service alive.”
Still, Simpson said the union would take a close look at the offer.
CUPW’s response was predictable and understandable, argued Steven Tufts, a labour studies professor at York University.
The message from Canada Post, said Tufts, is crystal clear.
“They’re really saying, ‘there are going to be layoffs, and this is the best we can do to transition workers.”
Canada Post clearly feels it’s got the upper hand in negotiations after the changes announced last week by the federal government, said Stephanie Ross, a labour studies professor at McMaster University.
“The employer is feeling empowered by the way the government intervened,” said Ross. “That had a real impact on the union’s leverage to get a better deal.”
The new offer could exacerbate internal divisions among the union membership, Ross said. In particular, voluntary severance packages could prove tempting for workers at the tail end of their career, or near the beginning, Ross added.
“There are divisions there for the employer to exploit,” Ross said, “and that’s what they’re doing.”
The new offer clears the path for layoffs by proposing that Canada Post gives CUPW six months’ notice of impending job losses, and voluntary departure incentive of up to 78 weeks pay.
“Layoffs will only be used if other measures, including attrition and departure incentives, prove insufficient to achieve reduction targets,” Canada Post said in a news release. “With thousands of employees set to retire over the next few years, reducing the size of the workforce through attrition will always be the first choice, but it cannot be the only option through this transformation.”
The new offer also proposes giving Canada Post the option to close 494 post offices run by the Crown corporation and staffed by CUPW. Of those, 493 had previously been protected from closure. The 494 includes 359 post offices officially classified as “rural,” even though many are currently in areas that are suburban or even urban.
Members of CUPW voted down what the Crown corporation called its “final” offer in August, in balloting ordered by federal jobs minister Patty Hajdu, under Section 108.1 of the Canada Labour Code.
Canada Post said last week that an Aug. 20 counter-offer from CUPW would have resulted in $700 million in additional costs per year if implemented.
Canada Post was originally expected to present its latest contract offer to the union last Friday, but said it needed more time after it got the green light from the federal government to implement a broad restructuring.
Last Thursday, the federal government gave the Crown corporation the green light eliminate home delivery, increase use of community mailboxes and to eliminate of some rural post offices. Federal procurement minister Joël Lightbound cited “unsustainable” losses in giving permission for the reforms, and gave Canada Post 45 days to come up with an implementation plan.
Within hours of Lightbound’s announcement, postal workers were back on national strike for the second time in a year.
Elements of the restructuring were included in a report from veteran mediator William Kaplan.
Kaplan’s report, delivered as part of an Industrial Inquiry Commission, also called the Crown corporation “effectively insolvent.”
