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Federal government forcing a vote on Canada Post’s final offer

OTTAWA—The threat of economic disruption that would come from another strike by Canada Post’s urban and rural delivery workers has encouraged the federal government to force a vote by the workers on the Crown Corporation’s latest offers to the union.

“Canada Post has received notice that the minister of jobs and families has approved its request for a vote to take place on the company’s final offers to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), using her authority under section 108.1 of the Canada Labour Code,” reported Canada Post. “The vote will be administered by the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) as soon as possible and will give employees in the urban and RSMC (Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers) bargaining units the opportunity to have their say on Canada Post’s final offers.”

“Canada Post welcomes the minister’s decision as it will provide employees with the opportunity to have a voice and to vote on a new collective agreement at a critical point in the company’s history,” the company states. 

“CUPW stands solidly against a forced vote,” responded CUPW President Jan Simpson. “A forced vote would mean yet another heavy-handed government attack on our rights to free collective bargaining—just months after the last minister of labour “paused” our legal strike in December 2024. Repeated government intervention poisons the bargaining process. A forced vote is an attack on the most basic rights of trade unions to represent their members.”

“A negotiated agreement between the parties has always been the preferred path to an employee ratification vote,” continues the announcement. “However, the parties remain at a major impasse after 18 months of negotiations, a national strike and an Industrial Inquiry Commission that detailed the challenges facing the company, and what needs to be done to begin addressing them.”

Employees will receive a signing bonus ($1,000 for full-time; $500 for all others, including temporary employees); COLA payments would be triggered at a lower threshold (7.16 percent instead of 13.59 percent) to provide better inflation protection from February 2025 to January 2028; for letter carriers using the Dynamic Routing delivery model, Neighbourhood Mail per-piece rates will be maintained—and paid on top of time values until January 1, 2030; finally, compulsory overtime will be removed.

For rural drivers, “employees will receive a signing bonus ($1,000 for employees with six or more scheduled hours per day; $500 for all others, including OCREs) and COLA payments would be triggered at a lower threshold (7.16 percent instead of 13.59 percent) to provide better inflation protection from February 2025 to January 2028.

Current employees would receive wage increases of six percent in year one; three percent in year two; two percent in year three; and two percent in year four (13.59 percent compounded). The offers also provide employees with better income replacement for leave under the short-term disability program and six added personal days locked into the collective agreements.

The date for the vote had not been announced as of press time Monday.

Article written by

Michael Erskine
Michael Erskine
Michael Erskine BA (Hons) is Associate Editor at The Manitoulin Expositor. He received his honours BA from Laurentian University in 1987. His former lives include underground miner, oil rig roughneck, early childhood educator, elementary school teacher, college professor and community legal worker. Michael has written several college course manuals and has won numerous Ontario Community Newspaper Awards in the rural, business and finance and editorial categories.