The Canadian Union of Postal Workers will resume negotiations with the Crown corporation in two days of talks scheduled Friday and Monday.
This follows both sides meeting with federal mediators earlier this week.
Talks come after workers rejected Canada Post‘s latest offer, which included wage hikes of about 13 per cent over four years and the addition of part-time workers.
CUPW, which represents 55,000 postal workers, said its national overtime ban remains in effect.
The ongoing negotiations for a new collective agreement have now lasted more than a year and a half.
In a statement posted on their website, Canada Post said, “We look forward to receiving a detailed and comprehensive response from CUPW that addresses the real, significant and increasing challenges faced by the postal service.”
Rafael Gomez, director of the Centre for Industrial Relations & Human Resources at the University of Toronto, said he believes for the parties, “there’s a lack of clarity from this Liberal government as to what will it do if there’s another work stoppage,” and without clarity, “parties don’t negotiate in good faith.”
For both sides, said Gomez, there is too much uncertainty and the stakes are high.
“If I start giving in and making concessions,” he said, “then all of a sudden there’s a binding arbitration and I’ve lost all of the leverage that I had in negotiation.”
Gomez says this leads to a ‘chilling effect’ when employees have the right to strike, but it is short-circuited when a government orders them back to work.
“You get a chilling effect,” says Gomez, “which doesn’t produce a better, longer lasting, collective agreement.”
In an emailed statement, Canada Post said they sent the “corporation’s best and final offers,” to CUPW on May, 28.
Gomez said the offer, “pretty much squared with what the demands were.”
The problem is that it wasn’t a negotiated deal, so union leaders recommended turning it down when membership would likely have voted yes, said Gomez.
One in three workers were happy with that deal, said Gomez.
“Probably more were happy, but knew that voting yes to this deal that they probably liked, might have undermined them in the future.”
“But it’s still one third, basically siding with management,” said Gomez, “which was a bit of a blow, to CUPW.”
It also signals to the management team that, “we don’t have such a unified group here,” said Gomez, “So the situation we’re in now is tricky.”
Timing is key however, and Gomez said this is a “high leverage moment to announce a strike,” adding “parcel and mail delivery peaks towards the end of the calendar year and that’s a high revenue generator for Canada Post, which is already struggling in terms of generating revenues.”
CUPW did not return request for comment before time of publication.
