Union vote on Canada Post contract offer set to wrap up Friday afternoon

Unionized workers at Canada Post are due to wind up voting on the Crown corporation's latest contract Friday afternoon.

Voting is set to wrap up at 5 p.m., with results expected to be shared shortly after.

The offer includes wage hikes of about 13 per cent over four years but also adds part-time workers that Canada Post has said are necessary to keep the postal service afloat.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has urged the roughly 55,000 postal service workers it represents to reject the proposal. 

If workers reject the offer, the union has said it will immediately contact management and invite them to return to the bargaining table. It warns further strike or lockout actions could risk the government intervening with back-to-work legislation or a binding arbitration order.

The union believes a strong no vote would not only reject the offer but also protect the integrity of the bargaining process.

"If this vote passes, we give Canada Post the green light to steamroll workers now and in the future," union national president Jan Simpson wrote in a letter to members in mid-July.

Canada Post has said the offer reflects the company's "current realities while protecting items that are important to employees" and accounting for "needed changes to help begin to rebuild the company’s parcel business."

"We know the ongoing labour uncertainty has had a significant impact on our customers and that they’ve had to adapt their business operations. This is not the position we wanted to put them in," the company said in a July statement. 

"Our intent has always been to reach negotiated agreements that will enable us to move forward and better serve Canadians and Canadian businesses."

The Crown corporation has previously said its operating losses amounted to $10 million a day in June.

The vote, which opened July 21, is being administered by the Canada Industrial Relations Board, which stepped in after federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu intervened in the labour dispute.

Canada Post and the union have been at odds with one another for more than a year and a half.

Last holiday season, postal workers went on strike, leaving mail and parcels undelivered and many post offices closed.

They returned to work the week before Christmas, when the labour minister established a process with the Canada Industrial Relations Board to assess the likelihood of Canada Post and the union reaching an agreement by the end of 2024.

The board, led by Commissioner William Kaplan, eventually found that Canada Post was essentially bankrupt. 

The board's final report tabled in May showed Kaplan recommended an end to daily door-to-door mail delivery and an expansion of community mailboxes, among other measures to keep the postal service in business.

He also endorsed Canada Post's model for adding part-time mail workers — one sticking point in negotiations — and largely blamed the stalled negotiations on CUPW defending "business as usual."

Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck