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CTV News
3 days ago
- Business
- CTV News
Postal workers' union files labour complaint against Canada Post
A Canada Post truck is seen on a road in Montreal on Tuesday, Dec.17, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) has filed an official complaint against Canada Post over alleged unfair labour practices . In a statement released Wednesday, the union wrote that the complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) stemmed from the postal carrier 'bargaining directly with members,' conduct they say interferes with CUPW's exclusive bargaining rights. The union statement cited numerous behaviours allegedly undertaken by Canada Post, including 'captive audience meetings, videos, press releases, documents' and other means to direct audiences to the Crown corporation's website, methods they claim served to 'bypass the Union.' Communications materials included 'alarmist comments' and 'misinformation,' the statement alleges. 'The Union is asking the CIRB to order Canada Post to stop this interference, level the playing field by giving the Union opportunity to rebut the employer's misinformation on their platforms and order damages to the Union and members,' it reads. In a statement to CTV News Thursday morning, Canada Post rejected the union's allegations 'in their entirety,' including claims it had negotiated directly with its employees. 'Under the Canada Labour Code, employers are permitted to express views and communicate with employees during collective bargaining,' it reads. 'Canada Post has exercised this right responsibly, delivering accurate, neutral, and factual information … We remain fully committed to concluding collective agreements through the proper channels.' Carrier, union divided on next steps The complaint comes amid a push to bring Canada Post and the union representing its workers back to the bargaining table . On Wednesday, Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu asked the parties to resume negotiations with the aid of federal mediators, noting that 'Canadians expect the parties to resolve this dispute one way or another.' In recent days, Canada Post has asked Hajdu to order a vote on the carrier's most recent offer, while the union has requested binding arbitration to resolve the labour dispute. Both sides have released statements rejecting the other's proposed way forward. 'Canada Post is seeking a timely and fair resolution to restore stability to the postal system while ensuring employees have a voice in the process by allowing them to vote. The union's proposal to send the matter to binding arbitration would do the opposite,' a Sunday statement from the Crown corporation reads.
National Post
21-05-2025
- Business
- National Post
Sabine El-Chidiac: Canada Post union addicted to irrelevancy
It's not déjà-vu, Canada Post might indeed go back on strike as early as this week. Canadians will remember with much anxiety that Canada Post workers recently went on strike in November, right as the holiday season was in full swing. That strike was perfectly timed to wreak as much havoc as possible in order to strengthen their bargaining power, destroying the most profitable time of year for charities and small business in Canada. Since the postal union and Canada Post ultimately could not reach an agreement, they were forced back to work by the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB), but not without securing a five per cent raise from Canada Post first. Article content Article content Article content The CIRB placed a due date on further negotiations to come to an end by May 22, 2025, hence the predicament Canadians now find themselves in. The postal workers union has served Canada Post with a strike notice, and as many 55,000 workers could walk off the job as early Friday at midnight. Once again, charities and small businesses will potentially be affected, and consumers will also suffer further in the era of tariffs and trade wars that are already making life more expensive. Despite the chaos and massive loss of business that the last postal strike cost, little has been done to alleviate this situation since the deadline has been set. Article content Article content When a postal strike is called, small business owners relying on cheaper shipping for their customers through the national postal service have to start charging customers upwards of $15 for shipping, and for those whose products average $10-$40 like one jewelry maker from Ottawa I spoke with, that cost is far too high. Coupled with the backlogs, price hikes, and delays that carriers such as Fed-Ex would have to deal with when they pick up Canada Post's slack, small businesses still struggling to get back on their feet after the pandemic are going to take another devastating financial hit. Article content The solution remains the same as when Canadians were held hostage at the holidays: breaking up the Canada Post monopoly. The Canada Post Corporation Act gives special privilege to the Crown coporation, which allows it to be the only ones who can deliver letter mail in Canada. European countries have already broken up their monopolies: as Canadian economist Vincent Geloso has pointed out, an EU directive has made it so that all letters have been open to competition since 2013, which effectively ends state-owned postal monopolies. Some European countries have gone as far as to privatize their postal system, and watched as prices for postal servic es fell as much as 17 per cent in Germany. That shows that privatization and breaking up a longstanding monopoly is possible, and beneficial, to citizens just trying to run their business, raise money for their charities, or just send a card to their grandmother.
Hamilton Spectator
16-05-2025
- Business
- Hamilton Spectator
Canada Post effectively ‘bankrupt,' federal mediator says in report pushing for weekend delivery
With just days until Canada Post workers could be back on the picket lines, a key report says the Crown corporation is effectively insolvent, and should be allowed to close more rural post offices, open more community mailboxes, and offer weekend parcel delivery with part-time workers. The report also recommends that door-to-door letter delivery be phased out, with daily delivery maintained for businesses. Meanwhile, business leaders across the country urged the company and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers to settle their differences and avoid a repeat of last year's 32-day strike. Both sides have until 12:01 a.m. May 22 to reach an agreement or face the prospect of a work stoppage through a strike or lockout. 'Canada Post is facing an existential crisis: it is effectively insolvent, or bankrupt. Without thoughtful, measured, staged, but immediate changes, its fiscal situation will continue to deteriorate,' veteran mediator William Kaplan wrote in his report delivered to the government Thursday but made public Friday. Kaplan also expressed skepticism that the two sides could reach a deal at the bargaining table, and that binding arbitration also likely wouldn't be helpful, because Canada Post requires changes in its official mandate from the government. 'Given what has occurred to date, it seems unlikely that free collective bargaining will be successful in bridging the divide,' Kaplan wrote. Kaplan delivered the official report from his Industrial Inquiry Commission to the federal government, including Patty Hajdu, minister of jobs and families, and John Zerucelli, secretary of state for labour. Both sides met with the government Friday to discuss the report. In a written statement, Hajdu urged the two sides to reach a deal. 'The report highlights the main issues that are holding up getting to an agreement and offers a way forward. It offers thoughtful suggestions on how to continue good-faith negotiations,' Hajdu said. 'It's time for everyone to put aside their differences, focus on shared goals, and ensure a strong postal system now and into the future.' Canada Post CEO Doug Ettinger praised Kaplan's 'frank' report. 'This report provides Canada Post, CUPW, our employees and all Canadians with a frank and straightforward assessment of the challenges we face,' Ettinger said in a written statement. 'It comes at a critical time as our efforts to respond to the changing delivery needs of the country have taken on greater urgency as Canada works to strengthen its economy in response to U.S. threats.' In December, Kaplan was appointed to run the commission by then-federal labour minister Steven MacKinnon. At the same time, MacKinnon asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to declare an impasse in contract talks. The CIRB did just that, and workers were ordered back on the job Dec. 17, temporarily pausing a month-long strike . Kaplan was given a dual mandate, of both charting a path for Canada Post's future structure and mandate, and to suggest the foundations of a potential new contract agreement. In his report, Kaplan noted that all three of Canada Post's lines of business — letter delivery, flyers and parcels — were under pressure. 'The first is in rapid decline because of electronic substitution; the second because of the shift toward digital marketing; the third, though overall volumes are rapidly increasing, because Canada Post faces fierce competition from the private sector and is losing market share,' Kaplan wrote. In previous decades, the more profitable segments of Canada Post's operations effectively subsidized the more costly parts, Kaplan argued. 'Low-cost urban and suburban mail delivery subsidized high-cost delivery to rural, remote and Indigenous communities,' Kaplan wrote. 'This model no longer works because the traditional core business — mail delivery — has fundamentally changed: fewer letters must now be delivered to more addresses.' Carma Williams, a longtime municipal councillor in North Glengarry — a township near Ottawa — wasn't surprised by the suggestion that rural post offices be sacrificed to help Canada Post weather its financial headwinds. 'That is a typical approach when organizations are finding themselves in financial difficulty and they need to get their financial house in order, and the first place they go to shut either bank branches or post offices … are to rural areas,' Williams said. 'They're more sparsely populated, and (officials) figure they're not going to get as big a pushback as in more urban areas, and so these rural constituents fall victim to the rural reality on an ongoing basis.' She supports the effort to expand community mailboxes, while noting that some constituents may still struggle with a change from mail being delivered directly — especially seniors with mobility challenges. 'But there are ways around those things,' she argued. 'Let's face it, I think the days of walking to the end of your driveway to pick up your mail — or having it dropped right in your house — you know, that's pretty old-fashioned stuff as far as I'm concerned. People move around a lot and have the capacity, for the most part, to get to a community mailbox. That way, they're not delivering to every single household.' Still, she sees the report's closure suggestions as a grim omen for rural communities in Canada. 'The potential post office closure is a perfect example of how you can kill a community step-by-step-by-step, by cutting it off at the means,' Williams warned. 'What's going to happen is you're going to have a rural landscape that's going to be vastly unpopulated, because people will not move to communities that don't have any services.' Kaplan's report poses a grim outlook for the union, said Stephanie Ross, a labour relations professor at McMaster University. 'The upshot is that the union is being told that they have to accept more flexible work and a smaller workforce — job security on a shrinking island,' said Ross. 'It's not that different from what happened at the LCBO.' The dispute, added Ross, goes to the very heart of how Canada Post should be treated — as a corporation with a bottom line, or as a public service. 'If we measure things like this according to the metrics of the private market, we're eventually not going to have these public services,' Ross said. In parcel delivery, Canada Post's share of the market has plunged, even as the overall market has grown, Kaplan noted. 'In 2019, Canada Post delivered 62 per cent of Canada's parcel market; in 2023, that number dropped to 29 per cent, notwithstanding Canada Post efforts to increase capacity and improve service. Private-sector competitors have almost completely taken over the market,' Kaplan said. More to come.
CBC
03-03-2025
- Business
- CBC
Kanata nuclear facility owner broke law during strike, labour board rules
Social Sharing A federal labour board has found the owner of a west Ottawa nuclear facility broke the law by failing to negotiate with employees in good faith during a protracted strike. About 40 Best Theratronics Ltd. (BTL) workers represented by Unifor returned to work late last month after securing an 11 per cent wage increase and a new collective agreement, more than nine months after walking off the job. About a dozen workers represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) are still on strike. Last week, the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) upheld unfair labour practice complaints against the owner of the medical manufacturing company. In separate complaints lodged last year, Unifor and PSAC accused the owner of BTL, Krishnan Suthanthiran, of breaching the Canada Labour Code. CIRB heard the complaints as BTL is federally regulated as a licensed nuclear facility. In a decision dated Feb. 27, the independent administrative tribunal found that BTL had failed to bargain in good faith, a breach of the code. BTL also failed to give representatives authority to bargain on its behalf and had bargained in bad faith by disseminating false and misleading communications designed to influence the bargaining process, CIRB found. Reasons for decision to come later CIRB also found that BTL issued explicit anti-union statements, which undermined the unions in the eyes of bargaining unit employees. BTL's communications amounted to an attempt to interfere with the representation of PSAC's members, the board found. Finally, CIRB concluded that BTL disseminated misinformation as a means of threatening, intimidating and coercing unionized workers so that they would not continue their affiliation with the complainants and exercise their collective bargaining rights. The board said it would provide its reasoning at a later date. CIRB also said that before exercising "its remedial powers" it had appointed an industrial relations officer to assist the parties in resolving the dispute, asking him to report back before March 31. One union disappointed In a statement, PSAC regional executive vice-president Ruth Lau MacDonald said they were happy CIRB recognized that BTL had violated the code. But the union is "disappointed that the decision only entails a CIRB staff resource to be assigned and report back by March 31," she added. "This means that the board is not making use of its remedial powers to fix the situation, while our workers have been on the picket line for almost 300 days now." While the two sides are still trying to reach an agreement, BTL has not responded to PSAC since last Thursday, she said.
