What the final offer from Canada Post includes, and why the union wants workers to vote no

Edmonton Journal

5 days ago

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Unionized postal workers are voting from July 21 to Aug. 1 on the final offer presented by Canada Post.
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The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) is encouraging workers to vote against it, as it calls it a forced vote that harms the 'foundation of free and fair collective bargaining.' Canada Post says the offer protects what is important to workers while reflecting the company's current reality.
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They also said the cost of living allowance (COLA), a benefit to employees that is paid when consumer prices increase, will have payments at a lower inflation threshold. If inflation rates exceed 7.16 per cent between Feb. 1, 2025 to Jan. 31, 2028, payments from COLA will be made.
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The schedule for wage increases over the next four years remained unchanged from the May 21 offer. The first year would see a six per cent increase, the second year, three per cent, and two per cent in each of the third and fourth years. The increases will be retroactive to Feb. 1, 2024.
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There were also changes to the short-term disability program, where employees will receive up to 80 per cent of their regular wages for up to 30 weeks, a benefit that before paid 70 per cent of regular wages for up to 17 weeks.
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To maintain the already existing benefits for current employees, new hires after the agreement is signed will need to work for six consecutive months before being added to the defined benefit component of the pension plan, which guarantees a set income for the employee's retirement years.
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There were also adjustments to the number of personal days, where employees will have 13 multi-use personal days a year, with seven paid out days a year, and up to five personal days being carried over every year.
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For urban workers the agreement also allows for dynamic routing, a new system that would update delivery routes daily based on mail volume and delivery points. Letter carriers will still receive per-piece payments for neighbourhood mail on top of the actual time value until 2030, and compulsory overtime will be removed. Dynamic routing would ultimately put an end to fixed routes created by the letter carrier route measurement system manual (LCRMS) that was built to assess and adjust equitable workloads for individual letter carrier routes. For the regions that won't have that implemented, a load-levelling of the work should happen, aiming to make predictable and balanced routes for employees.