Labour minister MaryAnn Mihychuk has appointed Toronto mediator William Kaplan to try to resolve the labour dispute at Canada Post before job action could start on Monday, August 29.
The union representing about 50,000 Canada Post workers issued 72-hour notice of job action on August 25 but said that it continues to try to bargain a collective agreement with the Crown corporation employer.
Initial job action is likely to start as work to rule, which is when employees are entitled to do no more than the minimum required by rules of their contract. Another option could be rotating strikes on different days or regions.
A full-blown strike is not expected right away.
CUPW workers voted earlier this year to give the union a 60-day mandate to issue 72-hour notice of job action. That mandate was set to expire on August 25. Once expired, the union would have to go back to its members to seek a new mandate to be eligible to announce a 72-hour notice of a labour disruption.
On August 24, Mihychuk requested that CUPW and Canada Post management agree to extend CUPW’s mandate to issue strike notice by 24 hours. That would have enabled more time for negotiation before a 72-hour notice of a labour disruption was announced.
CUPW said in a news release that Canada Post president and CEO Deepak Chopra refused the minister’s request, thereby forcing the union to issue the notice.
“From the outset, our goal has been a negotiated collective agreement without service disruptions,” said CUPW national president Mike Palecek in the release.
The two sides have been far apart on key issues in the dispute, such as how urban and rural mail carriers are paid and what kind of pension plan workers should have.
CUPW, for example, wants rural mail carriers to be paid by the hour and not on a per-parcel basis.
Canada Post wants to change the pension plan for new employees to be a defined contribution plan instead of a defined benefit plan. A defined contribution plan does not pay a guaranteed return when workers retire.
Canada Post said in an August 26 statement that its pension solvency deficit jumped to an estimated $8.1 billion as of July 1. That’s up from $6.1 billion at the end of last year. It also noted that it generated a profit of $1 million in the second quarter of 2016.
The ongoing job action has caused stress for retailers and other businesses that send parcels to customers.
(A previous version of this story appeared on August 25, before the mediator was appointed)
