Tougher working conditions for postal workers at heart of labor disputes, union says

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers says its workers’ changing roles, which have led to longer hours and tougher working conditions as the postal service tries to compete with delivery giants such as Amazon.com Inc., are at the heart of the ongoing labor dispute with Canada Post.

“Canada Post wants to gig-ify the post office. They want to outsource our work and create a two-tier workplace where some workers have much harder jobs than others,” said Jan Simpson, president of CUPW, in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

On Tuesday, CUPW, which represents more than 60,000 Canada Post delivery workers in rural and urban areas across the country, issued a 72-hour strike notice that puts workers in a legal strike position starting Friday. This could mean nationwide disruptions to postal services in the month leading up to the busy holiday season.

The two sides are still far apart on a wide range of issues: wages, improved benefits for permanent and temporary workers and better sick leave. But CUPW’s detailed demands on Canada Post reflect an effort to maintain working conditions for its members, which the union says have been eroded by the expansion of e-commerce and same-day delivery by the likes of Amazon.

Specifically, the union seeks to eliminate the “separate sorting from delivery” (SSD) system that creates dual roles for postal workers – delivery jobs and sorting jobs. A sorter could spend an entire day indoors sorting and preparing mail for a mail recipient, who then spends an entire day outdoors delivering that mail.

It’s a model used by companies like Amazon and Walmart Inc. to increase the efficiency of their distribution systems: A worker in a warehouse sorts orders into boxes, and the delivery of the item is usually outsourced to a third-party delivery courier.

Canada Post letter carriers also used to sort mail, which would ensure they weren’t on the road or in the cold their entire shift. The union claims the SSD system creates health and safety issues for the letter carrier, who spends an entire day outside on the job.

The two sides are also far apart in terms of wages. CUPW is asking for a compound wage increase of 24 per cent over four years, while Canada Post has proposed an 11.5 per cent wage increase over four years. The Crown corporation also wants to negotiate a “more flexible and affordable delivery model” that would include parcel delivery seven days a week, a proposal CUPW opposes.

Canada Post has been losing money since 2018 due to declining revenue from letter mail and parcel delivery. In the first half of 2024 alone, the Crown corporation had losses of $490 million.

The company said that since CUPW announced its strike mandate on Oct. 25, Canada Post’s package volumes are down 28 per cent compared to the same week in the previous year. Canada Post also said its current offer to the union ensures worker pensions, job security provisions and benefits are protected.

Mrs. Simpson says Canada Post lost its competitive edge when it eliminated door-to-door delivery to many households across the country, an initiative spearheaded by then-Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2014. The Liberals put the project on hold in 2018, but didn’t do it fully. restore direct mail delivery to many parts of the country. CUPW has pushed for Canada Post to innovate as a business by creating postal banks – providing basic banking services at local post offices. It is still a point of contention in this round of negotiations.

Adam King, associate professor of labor research at the University of Manitoba, says the likelihood of a strike for postal workers is high given the number of issues on the bargaining table. In total, 95 percent of CUPW members voted in favor of a strike.

“This is a workplace that is indirectly pressured by Big Tech. You have private competitors with a large non-union workforce and very low labor costs. Postal workers can see that and they want to get as much as they can in this round of negotiations,” he said.

CUPW has a long history of being the most militant union in the federal public sector, notes Stephanie Ross, professor of labor studies at McMaster University. “They are the kind of trade union that connects the economic interests of their members with a broader social vision. They have repeatedly gone on strike and repeatedly been hammered with back-to-work legislation.”

Canada Post workers were forced back to work by the Liberal government in the last round of negotiations in 2018. This time, using back-to-work legislation may be more politically contentious for the Liberals, said Larry Savage, a labor relations official. expert at Brock University.

“Public support for unions has grown and the Trudeau Liberals find themselves in a more precarious position without the formal support of the NDP,” he said. “To avoid the political risk of bringing forward legislation, the government may try to pre-empt a strike by moving the dispute to the works council for resolution.”

Asking Canada’s Industrial Relations Board to intervene in labor disputes by forcing arbitration between both sides has become a move for the Liberals of late. In August, the CIRB ordered thousands of railway workers to return to their jobs. On Tuesday, Labor Minister Steven MacKinnon ordered the CIRB to mandate the resumption of port operations in Montreal and Vancouver amid deadlocked labor negotiations.

On an impending Canada Post strike, Minister MacKinnon said he wants the two sides to continue talking. “We hope to get an agreement at the table,” he told reporters at a news conference on Parliament Hill on Tuesday.