Postal workers say latest offer from Canada Post far from adequate

The nationwide Canada Post strike affecting mail and package deliveries this holiday season is dragging into a fourth week.

While the Crown corporation and the union representing some 55,000 postal workers have resumed talks, the union says the latest proposal is far from adequate.

“It didn’t take very long to see that the offer was Canada Post moving further away from a negotiated agreement,” said Jim Gallant, a negotiator with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.

“Many of the things that they had in there were not the way that they have been earlier and had added more things, like more part-time employees, fewer full-time employees, wages were not anywhere close to what the union was asking for.”

In response, Canada Post said it has continued to put forward fair offers aimed at improving service to grow the parcel business while protecting and enhancing what employees have today.

“Canada Post is surprised by public comments made by CUPW regarding our counter proposal as we have made significant moves to close the gap on key issues like weekend delivery, pensions and wages and bring much-needed urgency to the discussions,” read a statement from the Crown corporation.

“If Canadian Post can drop some of its draconian demands we can move pretty quickly but there are problems around work rules, how many part-time or on-call employees that they see in their model and as long as they keep that view it’s gonna take time,” said Gallant. “When they finally come to the realization that workers are not coming back without improvements, then hopefully this will move fast.”

Postal workers walked off the job on November 15th, largely demanding better pay and working conditions, as well as protections from new technology.

Negotiations were temporarily called off by a special mediator in late November, before resuming again on December 1st. Canada Post then presented what it called a “comprehensive framework” for a new deal. This week, the postal workers said it sent new counter-proposals to the mediator in the hopes talks can resume. On Friday evening, the union said it received a response from Canada Post, which confirmed it had sent new proposals.

There’s growing pressure on the federal government to act as the business community’s calls for intervention get louder.

So far Ottawa has said it won’t step in, despite forcing people back to work in other recent high-profile labour disputes in ports and rail by directing the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order binding arbitration.

Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report