Canada Post workers rallied at several locations across the country Thursday, as the threat of a strike between the Crown corporation and its unionized employees looms.
“There are a lot of worries on postal workers’ minds right now, from the present moment into the future,” said Wesley Bartlett, a letter carrier who attended the rally in Ottawa.
Bartlett, who has worked with Canada Post for about six years, said job security is something postal workers are “going to have to fight for.”
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and Canada Post have been in contract talks for nearly a year. Those talks continue. Last month, workers voted overwhelmingly in support of a strike if a deal could not be reached at the bargaining table.
Numbers reported by the union show 95.8 per cent of urban workers and 95.5 per cent of rural workers voted to back the strike mandate.
So far, neither Canada Post nor the union has provided the minimum 72 hours’ notice of their intent to start a labour dispute.
But earlier this week the union said in a written statement it “won’t shy away from taking the next step” if no progress is made during negotiations.
At the rally in Ottawa on Thursday, CUPW national president Jan Simpson reiterated that position, adding the rally was intended to signify the union’s desire to negotiate a contract without going to arbitration.
‘Fair wages, safe working conditions’
In a news release announcing the rallies, CUPW said it has been bargaining with Canada Post for “fair wages, safe working conditions, the right for all workers to retire with dignity and the expansion of public postal services for all communities.
“Throughout this process, Canada Post has not dropped its proposed rollbacks and is asking for many of our major issues to be resolved through arbitration,” the news release read.
In an email Thursday, Canada Post stressed what appears to be a key sticking point in the negotiations: a desire to move toward seven-day-a-week parcel delivery.
“This new delivery model is essential for the future of the company, and critical to our ability to afford the offer we’ve put forward for current employees,” the statement read, adding the company is also seeking more competitive pricing.
“We’ve offered wage increases and additional paid leave, while protecting their defined benefit pension and stringent job security provisions.”
The mere threat of a strike has been enough to rapidly erode Canada Post’s revenue, the Crown corporation said Monday. Customers are switching delivery services out of concern that a service disruption may prevent holiday packages from arriving, it added.
Canada Post pointed to its deteriorating financial position as a key reason why the company must revisit proposals to the union.
The Crown corporation has lost $3 billion since 2018, including $490 million in the first six months of 2024.
It has also spent big on infrastructure investments in recent years, including the building of a new Toronto processing plant and the greening of its delivery fleet.
Core business ‘dissolving,’ prof says
At the same time, Canada Post’s core products are “literally dissolving underneath [its] feet,” said Ian Lee, a business professor at Carleton University.
Lee, who has published extensively on Canada Post, said there isn’t enough business to support the current workforce of mail carriers.
“The revenues are declining year after year after year,” he said. “Their situation is very, very grim. But it’s getting worse and worse.”
In its most recent annual report, Canada Post said it will fall below its required operating and reserve cash requirements by early 2025 if it does not add additional borrowing and refinancing.
As for parcel delivery, Lee said private industry offers the service for much less, further diminishing Canada Post’s share of that market.
Bartlett said he extends his “full solidarity” to the gig workers he encounters each day he’s out on his own route — especially those who are doing the job without the protections of a union. But he believes he has a responsibility as a member of an organized labour force to “get these unorganized, organized.”
“These people are out there working without job protections for very low wages, and a lot of these private companies are offloading a lot of these costs … onto the workers’ back,” he said.
Lee argued Canada Post should instead downsize and pivot to focusing on so-called “last mile delivery,” a service which the private market does not adequately fulfil.
Such a service would see Canada Post complete the final leg of a parcel’s journey, including to far-flung addresses where private services won’t ship.
Simpson said the union would rather see Canada Post go the other direction — instead expanding its operations to bring in more revenues by introducing services such as postal banking and senior check-ins.
“We want to expand services at Canada Post to help them to bring in money,” she said.
