The federal government is reasserting its stance that it won’t intervene in the ongoing Canada Post strike involving 55,000 postal workers despite mounting pleas for help from the businesses community.
“We urge the parties to get back to the negotiating table,” Matthieu Perrotin, press secretary to Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon, stated in an email to the Star Saturday morning. “Parties must do the work necessary to reach a deal, as Canadians are counting on them.
“Negotiated agreements are always the best way forward,” he wrote as the labour dispute enters its fourth week ahead of a critical holiday period.
Canada Post told the Star it’s waiting on a formal response from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) after the two sides traded proposals Friday through a federally-appointed mediator. The union told the Star it will provide comment Saturday afternoon.
The postal service said it has made “significant moves to close the gap on key issues like weekend delivery, pensions and wages.”
The Crown corporation also said CUPW “remains persistent in their demands to represent people outside their bargaining unit, such as making our cleaning staff, and other contracted support services, permanent Canada Post employees.”
Details of the proposals exchanged between the two sides in a confidential mediation process have not been shared, but the federal agency told the Star it was “surprised” by recent public comments made by CUPW about its proposal.
In a televised interview with CTV News on Friday night, CUPW negotiator Jim Gallant accused Canada Post of “moving in the opposite direction than we need to get to a negotiated collective agreement.”
“We would have preferred to hear from CUPW through that (confidential) process, rather than cause additional concern for our customers and employees,” Canada Post said in its statement. “We have not yet received a formal response from CUPW through the mediators. Given the urgency and the ongoing impact of CUPW’s national strike, we hope to hear back today.”
The series of unofficial proposals began last Sunday, after the union and Canada Post received a closed-door ultimatum from MacKinnon. No formal bargaining, however, has occurred since Nov. 28, when the mediator called off talks, saying the two sides were too far apart to reach a deal.
The tens of thousands of Canada Post workers have been on strike since Nov. 15, three days after MacKinnon made the controversial decision to intervene in another national labour dispute involving dockworkers. He ordered binding arbitration that sent locked-out workers back to their jobs at the ports of Montreal, Quebec and Vancouver.
The government may be feeling “some remorse” about its intervention, Barry Eidlin, an associate professor of sociology at McGill University told The Canadian Press. “And so they don’t want to just make this the default pattern.”
Throughout the labour negotiations the union has called for a cumulative wage hike of 24 per cent over four years, as well as suggested that Canada Post expand into banking.
The company is also seeking to provide weekend deliveries, and have a greater share of its staff be part-time. The union wants full-time workers to do weekend delivery, while the company wants to hire part-time staff to do the job.
Meanwhile, the strike is making life even harder for businesses to reach customers, as shipping giants UPS and Purolator both stopped accepting new orders from courier companies.
Couriers such as eShipper, which act as middlemen between smaller e-commerce businesses and large carriers, are among the companies temporarily barred from shipping with Purolator and UPS.
It’s devastating news for small retailers already struggling to reach customers during the peak holiday season, said Dan Kelly, CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Many of the small businesses typically use Canada Post to fulfil online orders, said Kelly, and have been scrambling to fill the gap.
“First, there was no Canada Post. If private couriers aren’t an option either, our members are really in trouble,” said Kelly. “It goes from being a very stressful situation to an absolute disaster.”
An eShipper memo to clients on Wednesday said it was a 48-hour pause, but Kelly suspects the pause could become permanent if the strike continues.
The effects of the strike are also being felt by some Ontario wineries, said the head of a trade association.
“Many small wineries use specialized delivery services, but even they are overwhelmed right now with increased volumes as a result of the strike,” said Michelle Wasylyshen, president and CEO of Ontario Craft Wineries.
With files from Josh Rubin and The Canadian Press
