By Lincoln DePradine

Mail service is still being impacted one week after the start of a strike by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) headed by Barbadian-Canadian Jan Simpson.

“We’re fighting for fair wages, to retire with dignity, to improve health and safety, and also to expand services at the post office,” said Simpson, national president of CUPW.

The strike, by some 55,000 Canada Post workers, has disrupted some mail and parcel-delivery services and led to the closure of some post offices, especially in rural communities and mom-and-pop shops across the country.

The industrial action was launched on Friday, November 15, after CUPW and Canada Post officials failed to reach a negotiated agreement on several issues including wages, pension and health and safety.

Canada Post said the shutdown comes at a “critical juncture” for the corporation, which reports losses of more than $3 billion since 2018.

Canada Post spokesperson, Jon Hamilton, said that meeting the bargaining demands of CUPW would add heavy costs and create “inflexibility” for the postal service.

Simpson, however, has said that Canada Post losses were accrued by the company through “mismanagement”, including “strategic investing” to try and compete with other parcel-delivery businesses.

“There’s no need for workers to pay for mismanagement,” said Simpson, the first Black woman to lead a national union in Canada.

A special mediator has been appointed to arbitrate between the two sides and progress is said to have been reached “on smaller issues”, but “a lot of ground” remains between the union and Canada Post on key concerns.

“We want to get a deal done,” said Hamilton. “We’ve put forward offers that would provide some flexibility in our delivery model, so that we can compete and grow our parcel business, while protecting what’s important to our employees; so, providing wage increases of 11-and-a-half percent over the next four years; protecting their defined benefit pension plan, which is the gold standard in Canada; and protecting their job security.”

Negotiations between Canada Post and CUPW—which is seeking a cumulative wage hike of 24 percent over four years—began a year ago.

Simpson, a member of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, described the strike as a measure of “last resort” in bargaining with Canada Post, which she accused of “trying to change our pension plan”, and also of laying off workers.

“We’re trying to negotiate a collective agreement that will help Canada Post grow the business, but also ensure that workers’ issues and concerns are also addressed and also improve the working conditions for our members,” Simpson said.

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L J I Reporter