{"id":5195,"date":"2025-07-18T10:14:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T10:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/5195\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T10:14:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T10:14:12","slug":"canada-post-union-calls-on-employees-to-reject-latest-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/5195\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada Post union calls on employees to reject latest offer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Labour dispute between Canada Post and employees has already dragged on for 20 months.DARRYL DYCK\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The union representing thousands of Canada Post employees is urging its members to vote against the latest offer from their employer, which would extend a labour dispute that has already dragged on for 20 months.<\/p>\n

The Canada Industrial Relations Board determined this week that the vote will take place between July 21 and Aug. 1, and involve 53,000 postal service employees in rural and urban regions of Canada, ranging from letter carriers to postal clerks and dispatchers who sort and distribute mail. The CIRB, an independent federal tribunal, will administer the vote.<\/p>\n

The federal government took the unusual step of calling a vote after the Canadian Union of Postal Workers rejected the postal service\u2019s final offer in early June. Canada Post had asked the federal government to intervene to call for the vote. A rarely used provision of the Canada Labour Code allows the minister of labour to direct that employees be allowed to vote on an offer if the minister deems it to be in the public interest. <\/p>\n

Canada Post is urging employees to vote in favour of the terms of a new agreement, which include wage increases of 13 per cent over four years and a $1,000 signing bonus for full-time employees.<\/p>\n

It says the dispute \u2013 including a one-month strike that began last November \u2013 has cost it hundreds of millions of dollars. <\/p>\n

But CUPW has embarked on a nationwide campaign to get its members to vote against the offer, characterizing it as one that would erode job security and pension benefits in the long-run and expand Canada Post\u2019s part-time work force at the expense of full-time jobs.<\/p>\n

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Forced votes are relatively uncommon, according to labour experts. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn this case, it is unlikely to resolve the outstanding issues in bargaining because they are so entrenched,\u201d said Larry Savage, professor of labour studies at Brock University. He added that the very act of Canada Post asking the minister to approve a forced vote likely resulted in a backlash that will help unite Canada Post employees in opposition to their employer. <\/p>\n

Adam King, an assistant professor of labour studies at the University of Manitoba, believes that Canada Post is betting on an \u201cexhausted\u201d membership to vote \u201cyes\u201d and get the agreement over the finish line. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a risky gamble. Forced ratification votes have a tendency to generate opposition from union members, particularly if leaders are able to make a credible case in a \u201dno” campaign,\u201d he said. If members return a decisive \u201cno\u201c vote, according to Dr. King, Canada Post\u2019s case at the bargaining table after the vote will be significantly weaker. <\/p>\n

The labour dispute between Canada Post and CUPW has been one of the most prominent union-employer clashes in Canada in recent decades, largely owing to the existential nature of the issues in contention.<\/p>\n

The postal service is losing money at a pace not seen in years because of the rapid growth of private delivery carriers, coupled with the decline in letter mail. The Crown corporation blames the structure of its work force \u2013 specifically, the large number of full-time letter carrier jobs \u2013 and the rigidity of the collective agreement as reasons why it cannot compete with private operators like Amazon, which capitalizes on flexible work and has substantially lower labour costs. For CUPW, preserving full-time jobs and protecting against the growth of part-time, flexible work is fundamental to its mandate as a union. <\/p>\n

In May, an independent commission appointed by the federal government to understand why Canada Post is losing money concluded that CUPW had to make changes to the collective agreement to allow for greater use of part-time employees. The commissioner, William Kaplan, wrote that the jobs should not be \u201cgigified\u201d jobs, but \u201cgood, attractive and unionized jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The union\u2019s national leadership has been issuing press releases and bulletins to its membership almost daily for the past 10 days, outlining details of Canada Post\u2019s offers to its rural and urban bargaining units, and specific language that the union says would disadvantage employees. <\/p>\n

For example, CUPW says that Canada Post plans to expand the use of robots at a major parcel processing centre in Scarborough, Ont., a move that will eventually result in job losses for workers at the centre. The union is also warning members that voting in favour of the offer will result in an \u201cexplosion\u201d of part-time positions for weekend and weekday work, creating a new class of workers and fewer full-time job opportunities. <\/p>\n

Canada Post is proposing the creation of more part-time positions to conduct weekend parcel delivery and increase parcel deliveries during the week. These positions will come with benefits and predictable hours, according to the corporation. The postal service currently only performs weekend parcel deliveries on select weekends during the year where parcel volumes are substantially higher. <\/p>\n

The corporation has also promised to preserve defined-benefit pensions for new hires; it had previously proposed defined-contribution pensions for new employees. <\/p>\n

In a statement issued last Friday, CUPW said that the vast majority of its local affiliates have urged members to vote against the offer. \u201cAt this time we are unaware of any executive committee that is recommending a yes vote,\u201d the union said. <\/p>\n

If Canada Post employees vote no to the proposals, both sides will return to the bargaining table. CUPW is currently exercising strike action through a ban on overtime for its employees.<\/p>\n

The union says it intends to continue the overtime ban until a deal is reached, but it will not escalate strike action to a full nationwide strike. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Labour dispute between Canada Post and employees has already dragged on for 20…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-5195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}