Today, 18 Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) members in Prince Rupert have halted postal operations and joined the national strike.
The union representing 55,000 Canada Post workers began their strike on Nov. 15, at 12:01 a.m. ET, warning that new mail and parcels will not be processed or delivered during the start of this holiday season. However, strikers in Prince Rupert stated they are not stopping residents from picking up mail already delivered to their PO boxes.
Greg Campbell serves as the local president of the CUPW in Prince Rupert. He is frustrated that Canada Post is not negotiating fairly regarding pension plans, establishing living wages for new employees, and proposing unnecessary changes to workers' routes through a system called "dynamic routing."
"So the biggest reason I think we're on strike today is because they haven't been bargaining in good faith for an entire year, and they expect us to just status quo – keep going, keep doing what we're doing, and it's not working anymore," he said.
He mentioned that two years ago, the CUPW agreed to extend their contracts with Canada Post with minimal pay increases, expecting they would negotiate fairly and reimburse workers for their efforts during the pandemic. Now, the Crown corporation claims to have lost $750 million, blaming the workers, which he says isn't accurate.
"It's very hard for us to compete with any other industry when the starting wage is less than $20 or $21 an hour for new hires. That's not a livable wage in Canada," said Campbell.
Currently, he has a defined pension plan that allows him to know exactly how much he will receive monthly after retirement. However, the new plan being proposed for hires will not be defined; instead, the amount will be based on the performance of the stock market in which Canada Post is investing its pension funds.
"Their benefits or their pension would be totally worked against the market. So if the market's up, they'd have a decent pension. If the market's down, they probably don't have a livable pension," said Campbell.
"And right now, Canada Post isn't contributing anything to our pension fund. We're flush with money for our pension right now. They haven't contributed to our pension since, I think May of 2023, and they're crying poor on the pension plan."
Campbell says the workers are also dissatisfied because their employer is trying to change their work method.
He explains that each worker currently "owns" a route, which means they have a guaranteed route they know and follow each day," he said. "Now, Canada Post wants to come in every day and tell them which routes will operate on the day and which won't. By seniority, the workers will pick their route on that day. That's not an efficient model, and it's not what we want to do. They're mismanaging the way that the postal service should work.
"They have spent their way into a deficit, and now they are trying to blame us for it."
He believes that Canada Post is suggesting that they lost $750 million due to worker expenses, but this loss is actually a result of their strategic spending. They invested $600 million in building a new processing plant in Scarborough and purchased thousands of electric vehicles without installing charging stations. As a result, these vehicles are sitting unused in a parking lot in Toronto, he said.
"There's misinformation and how it's always that they're losing money every year — as soon as we bring up negotiations, it's frustrating, and we've been negotiating with them for a year and we've gotten nowhere."
In a Nov. 15 news release, Canada Post expressed disappointment over CUPW's decision to initiate a national strike. The strike will severely impact millions of Canadians, small businesses, and charities during the busy holiday season. It will also halt services to remote and northern regions that depend on Canada Post, it said.
"We are committed to remaining at the table to negotiate new collective agreements," said Phil Legault, media relations, Canada Post.
He says Canada Post is facing significant financial challenges, losing $3 billion since 2018. Still, they have proposed competitive wage increases of 11.5 per cent over four years, additional paid leave, and job security protections.
They suggest improvements such as seven-day-a-week parcel delivery and better pricing to ensure a sustainable future and grow their parcel business. This new delivery model is crucial for the company's future and funding these employee benefits.
"The Corporation always feels like they have back to work legislation in their pocket, knowing that the government will always step in, or as the labour minister did to the port workers, just going to step in and put it into binding arbitration, in which 90 per cent of the time, the corporations are the ones that win, because they always side with the corporation," said Campbell.
He thinks that during events such as the COVID-19 pandemic or Christmas, the government considers postal workers "essential." However, they are not deemed essential during the rest of the year, and they can't force workers back to work under un-negotiated settlements.
Labour minister Steven MacKinnon says the federal government is not inclined to pursue binding arbitration yet and urged the parties to remain on the bargaining table.
“I’m not looking at any other solution other than negotiation,” MacKinnon told reporters in Montreal on Nov.15. “Right now, every day is a new day in collective bargaining and we are going to continue to support the parties in any way we can and make sure they are able to try and get a negotiated agreement.”
