Canada Post puts forward ‘final offers’ to union, posts $1.3B loss for 2024

Canada Post said it notched nearly $1.3 billion in operating losses last year as the beleaguered institution laid out its "final offers" to the union representing 55,000 workers after negotiations resumed on Wednesday. 

The Crown corporation has now posted seven consecutive annual losses, amounting to $3.8 billion before tax since 2018, it said.

Included in its latest proposal are an end to compulsory overtime, signing bonuses of between $500 and $1,000 and cost-of-living payments that are triggered at a lower inflation threshold.

Management's earlier offer of a nearly 14 per cent cumulative wage hike over four years remains unchanged, as does a plan to hire part-time staff for weekend delivery — a major sticking point in the talks.

Canada Post also aims to launch "dynamic routing" at 10 processing facilities initially, which could see mail carriers' routes change daily in response to parcel volume.

In a news release, it quoted a federally commissioned report released earlier this month that recommended dynamic routes and part-time weekend positions with similar pay rates, benefits and pension plans to full-time positions.

"Canada Post is facing an existential crisis: It is effectively insolvent, or bankrupt," commissioner William Kaplan wrote in the May 15 report.

"The world has changed, and both Canada Post and CUPW (Canadian Union of Postal Workers) must evolve and adapt. Merely tinkering with the status quo is not an option."

A month-long strike last fall stemming from the same contract negotiations cost the organization $208 million, said the annual report released late Wednesday. 

Revenue from parcels fell by $683 million or 20 per cent, it said.

The union had been in a strike position starting Friday last week but opted instead for an overtime ban.

Canada Post said ongoing uncertainty has pushed down parcel volumes by 65 per cent from the same time last year.

The organization faces big questions about its business model and its future as letter volumes plunge, prompting a $1-billion federal loan in January to keep it afloat.

Lorraine Muller, who worked at Canada Post as a letter carrier until last fall when she turned to sorting mail at a facility in Montreal, says workers have been getting a "bad deal" and that structural reform is needed. But a solution to postal woes is hard to come by.

"That's the toughest question," she said in an interview on Wednesday. "What do you do? I don't know."

Muller pointed to previous suggestions of expanding into banking — like the postal service in France and the Czech Republic — given the flight of bank branches from small towns.

"Many of us have a deep, deep sense of public service and public good, so let us do our jobs. We're not robots yet," she said.

“But stop driving away customers.”

Shippers fled Canada Post in droves when workers walked off the job on Nov. 15. Many customers returned after a ministerial directive prompted employees to go back to work on Dec. 17. Rather than be caught flat-footed a second time, plenty of e-commerce companies have played it safe this month by booking with other couriers.

Customer service agents struggling to handle the surge in business last autumn "were just overwhelmed," said Timothy Byrnes, who owns parcel delivery firm Jet Worldwide. His company was better prepared for the flood of shipments this time around, he said.

Meanwhile, employees may sense a threat of layoffs with Canada Post's proposal for part-time jobs in particular.

"Moving more parcel delivery to the weekends and having that be done by part-time workers poses a potential threat to the volume of work that is allocated to full-time workers during the week," said Stephanie Ross, an associate professor in the School of Labour Studies at McMaster University.

"Is there a path to moving into full-time or to converting those positions into full-time work?"

Ross also highlighted potential points of tension among workers.

"There are some people in the union who would see the ability to have permanent part-time work at the same wage rate and with access to pensions and benefits as a big improvement over doing temporary work because there is temp work already going on at the post office," she said.

Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby