The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) says it will move from a nationwide walkout and begin rotating strikes starting Saturday.
The move “will start mail and parcels moving, while continuing our struggle for good collective agreements and a strong public postal service,” Jan Simpson, CUPW national president, said in a news release Thursday night.
“Locals that will be rotating out will be informed closer to the time when they will take action,” Simpson said in the announcement, adding the rotating strikes are to begin at 6 a.m. local time.
The move comes as negotiations for a new collective agreement for 53,000 postal workers remain at an impasse. Canada Post tabled new proposals last week that kept a wage offer of a 13.56 per cent increase over four years but removed a signing bonus and introduced provisions related to expected job cuts. The union called those offers a step back and accused Canada Post of not taking bargaining seriously.
Canada Post spokesperson Jon Hamilton said the Crown corporation will comment Friday morning on CUPW’s decision to move to a rotating strike system.
On Wednesday, federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu told reporters on the way into the Liberal caucus meeting that the two parties have a responsibility to find a way through the labour impasse nearly two years into negotiations.
“They all know the process. The process is that they negotiate until they get to a deal that everybody can live with,” Hajdu said. “My expectation is that they all see the cards that are on the table and that they find a deal.”
CUPW met Wednesday evening with Hajdu’s colleague, Joël Lightbound, the minister in charge of Canada Post….
“We raised concerns about the Government’s planned cutbacks and their impacts on the frequency of delivery and delivery standards,” the union said in a statement after the meeting, its first in-person meeting with Lightbound. “The Minister made a commitment to reach out to us again within a few days.”
On Sept. 25, hours after Ottawa approved a major restructuring of Canada Post — including an end to home mail delivery — CUPW members in Atlantic Canada began walking off the job. Shortly after, union leadership announced a nationwide strike.
Canada Post has 45 days to respond with a plan to implement the government’s measures as of the Sept. 25 announcement.
“We did not take the decision to move to a nationwide strike lightly. Postal workers would much rather have new collective agreements and be delivering mail than taking strike action,” the union said in Thursday night’s statement. “Yet, we could not stand by as the Government announced its plans to allow Canada Post to gut our postal service and slash thousands of our jobs.”
CUPW added in the statement that a follow-up meeting with Lightbound’s office is planned for next week.
With files from The Canadian Press
