A Contentious Round of Bargaining

The 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers are split between two large units, the urban membership and the rural and suburban mail carriers.

The postal workers union has been bargaining with Canada Post for over a year. Throughout the employer has remained steadfast in resisting workers’ demands.

In August, after making “little progress” on key proposals and hearing calls for concessions and rollbacks, CUPW filed “notices of dispute,” prompting the government to appoint a conciliator to aid the negotiation process.

In September, Canada Post finally tabled a full offer to both CUPW units. According to the union, much of the package failed to meet members’ needs. The corporation offered only a 10 percent wage increase over four years and called for a series of concessions, including more “flexible” benefit plans, cutting leave entitlements, and placing newer members on a substandard pension plan.

CUPW countered with a comprehensive counteroffer aimed at protecting good jobs and wages while increasing Canada Post’s financial capacity. The corporation rejected much of the union’s proposal.

By mid-October, the period of conciliation had ended, and the union moved one step closer to walking off the job. Following a mandatory three-week “cooling off” period, postal workers in both the urban and rural units voted over 95 percent for strike action.

Amid concerns the federal government might impose binding arbitration, CUPW publicly urged Canada Post on November 1 to “negotiate, don’t arbitrate.”

As of November 3, the union was in a legal strike position, but withheld its seventy-two-hour notice, hoping to leverage its strike mandate to pressure the employer at the table. The union then followed up by tabling updated proposals, including 22 percent wage increases over four years, ten paid medical days, additional staffing, and protections against outsourcing, among other items. The employer’s “final” wage offer remained stuck at 11.5 percent over the same period.

Days later, the union held solidarity rallies in cities throughout the country, drawing support from the national labor movement and local community members.

With no further avenues for winning a contract at the table, the union issued its seventy-two-hour strike notice on Tuesday, as many of its primary issues remained unaddressed by the employer. Canada Post then issued a retaliatory lockout notice to the union, effectively guaranteeing a work stoppage unless an agreement was reached in the final days.

National Labor Unrest in Canada

This strike follows a wave of high-profile strikes within Canada’s federal jurisdiction. While most labor relations in Canada fall under provincial authority, industries crossing provincial or international borders — such as ports, rails, and air transport — are regulated by the federal government.

Being “essential” to global capital creates a double-edged sword for workers in these industries. On the one hand, unions wield significant strategic leverage to push their demands. On the other hand, employers often respond with intense resistance and calls for government intervention to repress strikes are common.

Over the past year, the government has been especially trigger-happy in its use of binding arbitration. However, rather than table back-to-work legislation, as it did against striking postal workers in 2018 and against Montreal port workers in 2020 and 2021, the Liberals have turned to an obscure provision of the Canada Labour Code. Under the guise of “promoting industrial peace,” the government has used Section 107 to instruct the Industrial Relations Board to terminate strikes and force parties into arbitration.

In late August, Teamsters railworkers experienced this intervention firsthand when their brief work stoppage was abruptly ended by government-imposed arbitration after months of efforts aimed at negotiating a deal.

Prior to this, then labor minister Seamus O’Regan attempted to end a strike by airline mechanics at WestJet using the same legal mechanism, though in this case the workers defied the government’s direction and continued their strike.

More recent, the Liberals ended a series of port strikes conducted by two separate unions in British Columbia (BC) and Quebec in one fell swoop. Striking and locked-out members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in BC and the Canadian Union of Public Employees in Quebec both had their rights to strike infringed when the government buckled under pressure from the business lobby and imposed binding arbitration.

As bad as previous uses of back-to-work legislation have been, at least these required governments to debate their actions in Parliament. The Liberals’ recent “Section 107” actions have allowed the government to sidestep this democratic formality and simply act unilaterally.

The Liberals are setting a dangerous precedent. With a Conservative majority government increasingly likely after next election, workers may face even greater restrictions on their right to strike under Pierre Poilievre’s leadership.

The Path Forward

The outcome of the Canada Post strike remains uncertain. The corporation and the union have vastly different views about how to improve the postal corporation’s financial situation. Rather than cost-cutting and imposing concessions on workers, the union has long advocated introducing postal banking and senior check-in services, and restoring full door-to-door mail delivery — a service that was cut under the previous Conservative government.

By contrast, Canada Post claims its current model is “unsustainable” yet appears unresponsive to the union’s suggestions for improvement. Meanwhile, right-wing commentators are seizing the opportunity to renew calls for privatizing the Crown corporation.

The government’s response could prove decisive. Earlier this week, minister of labor Steven MacKinnon indicated that the government had no plans to intervene, but this could change if the conflict persists and employer associations put pressure on the government.

The Liberals’ track record of imposing binding arbitration raises doubts about their neutrality. Recent interventions in labor disputes have prioritized appeasing employers over protecting workers’ rights. However, having faced backlash for heavy-handed tactics, the Liberals may hesitate to repeat the same approach.

Throughout its history, CUPW has been a vanguard force in the Canadian labor movement. It is a union that has fought not only for its own members but also for the broader Canadian working class. It was striking postal workers who won national paid maternity leave, for example.

Today the union is trying to hold the line against the erosion of working conditions in delivery services. Securing a strong contract at Canada Post would not only benefit its members but also set a precedent for workers across the country.