Moose Jaw postal workers are frustrated, but unsurprised by Canada Post’s latest move, which was to send proposed collective agreements to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) a mere 36 hours before the existing agreements expire — and then refuse to give negotiators time to review those documents.
“What was released to the media, as well as the general public, is just the Coles Notes version,” explained Darla Jattansingh, president of CUPW Local 781 in Moose Jaw, which represents more than 30 frontline workers.
“Obviously, the union would have received, like, a 5-inch-thick binder full of legal terminology for all of these changes, so they need time to review it. Unfortunately, the Corporation, or Canada Post, has refused to give the union an opportunity to review and perhaps provide a counteroffer.”
Canada Post workers first went on strike in December, but were forced back to work when the Labour Minister at the time, Steven MacKinnon, used sections 107 and 108 of the Labour Code to pause the strike until May 22.
MacKinnon also extended the existing contracts for the two bargaining units, the Urban Postal Operation (UPO) and the Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers (RSMCs), to May 22.
CUPW released a statement at that time “denounc(ing) in the strongest terms this assault on our constitutionally protected right to collectively bargain and to strike.”
Since December, the union says, Canada Post has repeatedly walked away from negotiations. The scheduled resumption of the strike is not a surprise, but the corporation waited until the last moment to send an offer.
That offer is also a global one, applying to both the UPO and RSMC, a move that will significantly alter existing contracts that have separate collective agreements for each unit.
“From what I understand, there is some fine print that the global offer must be accepted in its entirely, leaving no room for negotiation or clarification around what they’ve proposed,” Jattansingh said.
Asked whether the strike will move ahead as planned, she said she didn’t know.
“I really can't say what's going to happen. I wish I had more information. We would all like to know ourselves but unfortunately, providing a global offer 36 hours before the deadline of the contract ending and a looming strike and refusing to allow some time to properly analyze, review, or even negotiate some of the terms is... not surprising.”
CUPW leadership released a statement saying that the May 21 global offers are an attempt by Canada Post to change collective agreements giving workers rights they fought hard for. They gave the following bullet points to support their argument:
- Wages: A wage increase of 13% over 4 years is short of our last demand for a 19% increase in members’ base wages to keep pace with the rising costs of living.
- Cost Of Living Allowance: The 13.59% trigger threshold is far too high and means it will likely never be paid out. The offered 6% wage increase should be seen as back pay to make up for the high inflation from the previous periods because the COLA payments in 2022-2023 were not sufficient and are not part of the base salary.
- Part-Time Parcel Delivery: For Urban members, instead of using regular full-time workers and existing collective agreement provisions for seven-day delivery, they want to introduce approximately 20% more part-time positions than the 10% that exists today. Some “flex” part time would be forced to stay up to 30 hours per week.
- Dynamic Routing: They also want to introduce dynamic routing in a limited number of locations without proper agreement on the rules governing such a system. Although CPC is stating that the routes will be route measurement system compliant, they are unable to demonstrate this to the Union and admit they do not have the software to do this or the technical ability to enact this process.
- Load Levelling: For both RSMC and Urban members, Canada Post wants to introduce load levelling. Instead of fixing the issues with the current system, Canada Post wants to transfer volumes of mail and points of calls to other workers during scheduled hours with no additional compensation. This is to be done on an ad hoc basis each morning by supervisors who may have limited knowledge of the route measurement systems.
- Two-tier benefits qualification: Canada Post also wants to create a second class of benefits qualification requirements for new hires by delaying health and pension benefits until six months of consecutive regular employment.
- Personal Days that Already Exist under the Law: The additional six personal days are part of the Canada Labour Code — writing them into the collective agreements is helpful but is window dressing.
- They’re taking away the 5-minute wash-up time.