Canadian postal workers vote 95% to strike

Just before the weekend, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers published an update on their website regarding negotiations with Canada Post.

The update is for the two largest bargaining units of unionized Canada Post workers: Urban Postal Operations (UPO) and Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers (RSMC).

The previous collective agreements for both groups of CUPW members expired at the end of January, and that was after a two-year extension; the contract was originally supposed to expire in 2022.

The first bargaining session was held on 15 November 2023.

Several issues have emerged during the several bargaining sessions since then.

During the November session, Canada Post wanted to increase the use of part-time labour by introducing a new job classification: permanent flexible employees. They would be scheduled a minimum of 3 hours per day but would have to stay 8 hours—if work was available. According to the union, this would result in more part-time work among the bargaining groups.

Also in their initial proposal, Canada Post wants to eliminate route ownership. Instead of bidding on specific routes, carriers would bid on a schedule, which could be a general area, a start tie, or a wave. The work each carrier would do each day would be determined by a routing software.

For example, during the December bargaining session, Canada Post indicated that they wanted to negotiate articles in both contracts that currently prohibit them from using telematics (such as security camera footage, GPMS, and on-board diagnostics systems) to monitor worker activity. Those systems are to be used only to protect the mail and Canada Post property. The union is opposed to this electronic surveillance.

At the bargaining table in January, Canada Post proposed eliminating Appendix “I”, which currently protects nearly 500 retail counters across the country. Canada Post wants to close more than a quarter of the post offices that are staffed by CUPW members, according to the union.

The February session saw multiple issues come forward. In that session, Canada Post proposed getting rid of double time for any hours worked after 3 hours of overtime. They also want to get rid of the marriage leave benefit and the 5-minute wash-up time. Finally, they proposed several rollbacks for vacation time for current workers.

As well, they want to create a two-tiered vacation schedule between current workers and new workers, with new workers capping out vacation time at 6 weeks (currently 7 weeks), having to wait 10 years before their first increase in vacation time, and losing their pre-retirement vacation leave.

In March, Canada proposed converting the workers’ benefits plan to a flexible benefits plan with a health spending account. This is not a health spending account in addition to regular health benefits; this is a health spending account instead of regular health benefits.

Canada Post proposed at the April bargaining session to make it harder for new workers to get a pension. They would have to work 2,000 hours as a regular employee before being eligible for either group benefits or any pension plan. So any hours worked as a temporary employee wouldn’t count.

If these workers do end up getting enough qualifying hours, the pension they’d get would be a defined contribution plan instead of the defined benefits plan everyone else gets now.

Under a defined benefits plan, workers are guaranteed a certain pension income when they retire; under a defined contributions plan, there is no guaranteed income; it will depend on how much you contribute, interest rates, how the fund was invested by the fund managers, and so on.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Canada Post wants to cut their pension contribution payments in half for new members.

By the time August rolled around—9 months after bargaining began—Canada Post had refused to reverse its positions on any of the above proposals. On top of that, they had still not presented any wage offers yet.

As a result, CUPW filed two notices of dispute with the federal minister of labour, triggering a conciliation process. The federal government appointed two conciliation officers on 13 August, kicking off the 60-day conciliation period, which would end 12 October. This would be followed by a 21-day cooling-off period, which itself would end 2 November. All of that depends, of course, on no agreement being reached between the negotiating teams.

Later that month, CUPW announced strike vote meetings in September and October.

And that brings us to last Friday, when the CUPW published the provisional results of those strike votes, which were held in multiple locations throughout the country.

Of the members of the UPO unit who participated in the strike vote, 95.8% voted in favour of striking. The RSMC members had a similar result, coming at 95.5% voting “yes” to strike.

The initiation of the strike vote process prompted Canada Post to finally put forward a wage proposal toward the end of last month, 10 months after negotiations started.

They offered 10% over 4 years, with 3.5% in just the first year. That works out to 2.5% per year on average. Here’s what they got in their last contract:

1 February 2018	2.0%
1 February 2019	2.0%
1 February 2020	2.5%
1 February 2021	2.9%
1 February 2022*	2.0%
1 February 2023*	2.0%

That’s a combined 13.4%, or an annual average increase of 2.23%, which is lower than what is being offered this time.

Keep in mind that the consumer price index in Canada increased from 129.7 in February 2017 to 158.8 this past February. That’s a rise of 29.1 points, or 22.44%.

So, during the period that these workers were receiving a 13.4% wage increase, inflation rose by 22.44%, leaving the workers with a cut to real wages—wages adjusted for inflation—of 9.04%.

Going into bargaining, these workers were already more than 9% behind when adjusting for inflation. 10% over the entire contract will barely be enough to catch up from that, let alone be enough to cover inflation this year, next year, and the final two years of the contract.

That’s why the workers are asking for 12.65% in the first year and 4.5% in year two, with further discussions on the length of the agreement and what the rest of the increases will look like.

Now, 12.65% might seem a lot for one year, but it would cover the 9.04% shortfall imposed upon them in their last contract from a federally-appointed arbitrator and leave 3.61% leftover to hopefully make up for inflation in the first year of the contract.

Here are a few other proposals the workers are making:

• Increase short-term disability payments to 80% of wages— currently only 70%
• Increase injury on-duty to payments to 88%
• Increase paid medical days from 7 to 10
• Improvements to health benefits, including coverage for health specialists, fertility treatment, gender-affirming care, and vision
• Give temporary workers access to health benefits when working on a continuous assignment of at least 6 months
• Contract in cleaning, highway services, combined urban services, and other work that CUPW members can perform
• Increase the number of services Canada Post offers, such as postal banking, senior and other check-ins, and an e-commerce platform

Keep in mind that a strike vote doesn’t mean the workers are going on strike. It does give their bargaining teams extra leverage to use in negotiations. They can go back to the table and show the employer that the workers are willing to (overwhelmingly) go on strike to protect their current contract and get their new wages.

Hopefully, Canada Post will make concessions this time, rather than force them to go on strike then use their strike as an excuse to beg on their knees to the Trudeau government to interfere, like they did in 2018.

The federal government appointed two mediators on 15 October to help with negotiations, so we’ll see what happens.

If Canada Post refuses to concede and the workers do go on strike, the earliest they can do it is this upcoming Sunday.

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Update (29 October 2024): In a media release sent out to the media today, Canada Post indicated that they have increased their wage offer from 10% over 4 years to 11.5% over 4 years. Remember, the workers are asking for 17.15% in the first 2 years.

They also said that they are “protecting the defined benefit pension for current employees” but didn’t mention whether they changed their stance to bring new workers onto defined contribution.

They said that they are implementing “continued wage protection against unforeseen inflation” even though they have proposed wage increases that don’t make up for past inflation.

As well, they said they are committed to “improved leave entitlements for current employees” but again said nothing about how that affects new workers.

They want to “transition to an hourly rate of pay for RSMC employees”, and they support CUPW’s proposal for the eventual merger of the RSMC and Urban bargaining units.