More than 53,000 postal workers across Canada could find out this week exactly what deal they’ll be voting on.
While Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers announced an “agreement in principle” in late November, then a tentative contract agreement shortly before Christmas, the two sides have been hammering out a few final details over the last month.
According to a statement from the Crown corporation, the back-and-forth is almost complete.
“The main components of the collective agreement language have been agreed upon. What remains is fine-tuning a single item, which will be finalized by the two parties (this) week,” Canada Post said.
CUPW said it had “no further update.”
While neither side would confirm what the remaining item is, sources familiar with the discussions said it’s a largely-technical question about disability benefits.
It’s no surprise it’s taking the two sides so long to reach the finish line given the bad blood that’s built up during a two-year dispute which has led to two national strikes, labour experts say.
“They’re not efficient at working out language because they’ve been at each other’s throat for two years,” said Steven Tufts, a labour studies professor at York University. “It takes extra time to get the language right.”
The lengthy delay between the agreement in principle and a formal agreement with legal language isn’t exactly standard, said Brock University labour studies professor Larry Savage. Then again, Savage added, nothing about the Canada Post-CUPW dispute has been standard.
“Unions and employers typically don’t take this long to finalize tentative agreements after reaching agreements in principle,” said Savage, “but this round of bargaining has been anything but typical.”
As for whether a tentative agreement is likely to get the thumbs-up from union members, Tufts says it’s likely to get a ‘B’ grade, and is “ratifiable,” unlike the so-called ‘final offer’ members rejected in a forced vote last year.
As for when the vote would take place, and how long it would take, Tufts says traditional CUPW practice has been to have several weeks of union leadership touring the country, answering questions from members.
But he suspects it could be shorter than usual, given technological change, and impetus to get the deal done.
In October, Canada Post presented CUPW with another offer, just a few weeks after the federal government gave the green light for a broad restructuring of the Crown corporation.
Tufts suspects there’s just enough improvement from the October offer to push members into voting yes, including wage increases of 6.5 per cent and 3 per cent in the first two years, compared to 6 and 3.
The October offer was a four-year deal with 2 per cent raises in each of the last two years, while the tentative agreement is a five-year offer, with raises matching the Consumer Price Index — inflation — in each of the final three years.
In late September, the federal government gave the green light for a broad restructuring of Canada Post, including elimination of home delivery, increased use of community mailboxes and shuttering of some rural post offices.
Federal infrastructure minister Joël Lightbound said the restructuring was necessary to fight an “existential crisis” faced by the financially-struggling Crown corporation.
Many of the changes approved by the minister were recommended in a May report by the Industrial Inquiry Commission led by veteran mediator William Kaplan.
Within hours of Lightbound’s September announcement, CUPW launched its second national strike within a year. That strike was subsequently downgraded to a series of rotating regional strikes.
On Nov. 7, the Crown corporation gave the federal government its implementation plan for the restructuring, but said it wouldn’t make details public until the plan is finalized and approved.
The union has said the restructuring would lead to service cutbacks and job losses.
Canada Post CEO Doug Ettinger reiterated before a parliamentary committee in December that the Crown corporation is expecting 16,000 employees to retire or take voluntary departure by 2030, with another 14,000 leaving by 2035.
