The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has voted 96 per cent in favour of strike action against Canada Post, which could happen as early as Sunday if an agreement isn’t reached soon.
Issues such as wages, pensions, and the health and safety of letter carriers are among the concerns raised by the union. While strike action isn’t ideal, CUPW Local 790 President Bruce Northcott says ensuring employees receive the right compensation package is critical.
“What we really want to do is make sure that we keep a standard of what we’re doing and maintain the quality of our service.”
CUPW members are seeking increased benefits coverage, higher starting wages, as well as improvements to overtime pay and safety, with Northcott stating that the gaps in the current contract are impacting rural postal workers significantly.
He alleges that rural mail carriers don’t receive the same overtime pay that urban carriers do, adding that rural route positions are the most difficult to fill and retain, especially because the starting wage for new employees is less than competitive.
“One of our biggest issues is that the new starting wage implemented two contracts ago is quite a bit lower than what the starting wage used to be. People are quitting all across the country. Management has told me that out of the last 10,000 new workers they hired, only a thousand are left.”
Locally, a worker shortage is one of the biggest issues for the Nelson postal office, with Northcott noting that the office is often impacted by a lack of staff when someone is either sick or away on vacation.
“We’ve already had an impact; we’ve had to close some days because someone called in sick and someone else was on vacation, leaving us with no workers to fill in. The last person who retired wasn’t replaced, so they’re running on a bare-bones operation with no one to cover breaks or anything like that, and the employer seems satisfied with that.”
He says the CUPW members only voted in favour of job action as a last resort after the employer refused to budge during months of ongoing negotiations, adding that it was a critical move to ensure the viability of service.
“We’ve only chosen to do this as a very last resort. We’ve been paying negotiators to be in Ottawa negotiating with the corporation, and they haven’t wanted to budge on anything. If we don’t succeed here, we feel that the service will be compromised in the future. As I mentioned, we’re already facing staffing issues. There are mail routes that go uncovered, and we’re trying to maintain a decent level of service.”
Canada Post delivered a new offer to members on Wednesday morning, which includes a total of 11.5 per cent in wage increases spread over four years, as well as protections for defined benefit pensions for current employees.
Northcott says that after ten months of negotiations, he’s pleased that an offer was made, indicating the postal service’s willingness to work towards a sustainable compensation package. However, he’s unsure if the union will accept it.
“We’re trying to get Canada Post to come to the table, negotiate, and work with us. It seemed like they weren’t willing to work with us, which is why we made the very difficult decision to accelerate our actions.
“I don’t think we can deny that there will be an impact. Nelson has a lot of clientele and businesses that will absolutely be affected by job action, and we don’t want there to be a labour disruption, but we believe that the people of the country deserve a better delivery model than this.”
Should job action take place, CUPW has made arrangements with Canada Post to continue delivering socio economic and pension cheques.
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