Canada Post's new offers 'fall short,' union says as review ongoing
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) is reviewing offers presented by the Crown Corporation as a potential strike looms.
A 72-hour strike notice was issued on Tuesday, with the deadline set as Friday midnight for a planned strike.
As the review is underway, the union has already said that the offers “fall short” in a news release . It outlined the key issues that still remained unresolved by the latest proposals from Canada Post.
The union said that a wage increase of 13 per cent over four years was “short of our last demand,” which was for a 19 per cent increase to members’ base wages “to keep pace with the rising costs of living.”
Part-time and weekend work, which has remained a sticking point, was still a problem for the union after the corporation’s offers. The union said that Canada Post wants to introduce roughly 20 per cent more part-time positions than the 10 per cent in use today “instead of using full-time workers and existing collective agreement provisions for seven-day delivery.”
“Some ‘flex’ part-time (work) would be forced to stay up to 30 hours per week,” the union said.
The union was also unsatisfied with the proposals as they pertained to dynamic routing, which optimizes delivery routes, and load levelling, spreading out the processing and delivery of mail.
As for benefits, the union was critical of Canada Post’s “two-tier benefits qualification,” in which there would be a “second class of benefits qualification requirements for new hires by delaying health and pension benefits until six months of consecutive regular employment,” the union said.
The union also said that Canada Post would be taking away five-minute wash-up time.
One point that the union seemed content with was that Canada Post had written six additional personal days into the collective agreements. However, the union pointed out, the days are part of the Canada Labour Code, and called the addition “window dressing.”
If the postal workers hit the picket lines, this would be their second strike in less than six months. The last strike was in November and lasted 32 days after both the parties failed to reach a consensus. In December, the workers were ordered back to work by the Canada Industrial Relations Board.
Canada Post rejects strike delay offer from the union
A two-week pause on the strike was proposed by the union, according to CUPW negotiator Jim Gallant. But Canada Post did not agree to the proposal , pushing for the union to agree to its offers submitted Wednesday.
The new offers include a wage increase of 6 per cent in year one for current employees, 3 per cent in year two, and 2 per cent in year three and year four, respectively, or 13.59 per cent compounded, per a news release.
“The offers also provide employees with better income replacement for leave under the short-term disability program, and six added personal days locked into the collective agreements,” Canada Post said in a statement.
Under these offers, the statement elaborated, the current employees would keep their defined benefit pension, job security provisions, health benefits and post-retirement benefits, vacation (up to seven weeks) and pre-retirement leave, cost of living allowance that protects against the effects of unforeseen inflation, and work schedules.
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