Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu said Thursday she’s putting Canada Post’s latest offers to unionized postal workers up for a vote in the hope of breaking a long-standing impasse between the parties.
She said in a social media post it’s in the “public interest” to give members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) an opportunity to vote on the offers, which Canada Post said are its “final” proposals.
Hajdu said the Canada Industrial Relations Board will be directed to conduct the vote “as soon as possible.”
CUPW, which represents about 55,000 mail workers, has pushed back on the idea of a membership vote on the latest offer. The union accused the employer of being “not serious about meaningful arbitration” in a bulletin sent to members Tuesday.
Hajdu asked the parties on June 4 to work out terms for binding arbitration — a process that would see a third-party attempt to hash out a collective agreement.
Canada Post has argued arbitration would be too slow and asked the federal government on May 30 to instead put the latest offers up to a vote.
In a media statement issued Thursday, Canada Post spokesperson Lisa Liu said the corporation welcomes the vote, adding “it will provide employees with the opportunity to have a voice and vote on a new collective agreement at a critical point in our history.”
“A negotiated agreement between the parties has always been the preferred path to an employee ratification vote, however the parties remain at a major impasse,” Liu said.
Ending door-to-door delivery recommended
On Thursday evening, CUPW said in a statement that it is urging members to vote no to the offers. The forced vote amounted to “another assault on our collective bargaining rights,” the statement said.
“These repeated government attacks have poisoned the bargaining process,” wrote CUPW president Jan Simpson.
CUPW has been in a legal strike position since May 23 but workers have not taken to the picket lines. Instead, the union has opted for a national ban on overtime.
Canada Post and its union have been negotiating for roughly a year and a half on a new deal for workers while the postal service’s financial plight has grown worse.
The latest offers tabled by Canada Post on May 28 include a wage hike of a little more than 13 per cent over four years and plans to institute weekend mail service, along with other structural changes aimed at keeping the postal service afloat.
Those changes include the introduction of a corps of part-time postal workers with similar rates of pay and benefits.
An Industrial Inquiry Commission set up by the federal government after last year’s month-long holiday season strike by postal workers found that Canada Post was essentially bankrupt.
Commissioner William 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.