Canada Post workers move to rotating strikes. What does this mean for deliveries?

The union for Canada’s postal workers has announced that, beginning Saturday, its members will move from a nation-wide strike action to rotating strikes . Here’s what that could mean for delivery.

In a letter dated Oct. 9, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) said: “Today, we are announcing that starting Saturday, October 11 at 6 AM local time, CUPW will move from a nation-wide strike action to rotating strikes. Locals that will be rotating out will be informed closer to the time when they will take action.”

Yes. However, the union did not give an exact timeline. “This will start mail and parcels moving, while continuing our struggle for good collective agreements and a strong public postal service,” Jan Simpson, CUPW national president, said in its statement.

In a statement to National Post, Canada Post said it will welcome back employees on Saturday.

“Plans are now under way to ensure a safe and orderly restart of our national operations,” it said, adding: “While postal services will begin to resume next week, uncertainty and instability in the postal service will continue with the union’s decision to conduct rotating strikes. As a result, all service guarantees will be suspended.”

National Post has reached out to CUPW for additional information.

The union met Wednesday night for a little over an hour with Joel Lightbound, the federal minister responsible for Canada Post. It said a followup meeting is planned for next week.

Simpson said the union raised a number of issues , including new revenue from a postage increase this year.

“We also informed the Minister of things Canada Post has been omitting from its public narrative, like the hundreds of supervisor positions that have been added over the last five years while cutting CUPW maintenance, sorting, and delivery positions,” she said. “Although there are fewer people to supervise, Canada Post is spending more money on supervisors.”

She told union members that the minister seemed interested, and that “we expect him to look into the issues that we raised.”

The offer is essentially unchanged from one which was presented on May 28. It includes compounded wage increases of 13.59 per cent over four years, while protecting their defined-benefit pension, post-retirement benefits, pre-retirement leave and other elements. A signing bonus is no longer on the table.

Simpson called the latest offer from Canada post “an outright attack on public service,” and said the company was “making a mockery of the bargaining process.”

The current strike began on Sept. 25 when Lightbound unveiled changes during a press conference , in which he noted: “Canada Post is effectively insolvent, and it is facing an existential crisis.”

Changes included transitioning the country’s remaining four million individual addresses to a community mailbox system over the next nine years; relaxing delivery standards to allow for more transportation of mail by ground rather than air; and ending a moratorium on closing rural post offices.

“We did not take the decision to move to a nation-wide strike lightly,” Simpson said. “Postal workers would much rather have new collective agreements and be delivering mail instead of taking strike action.”

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