There may be a mail strike by Friday.

CUP-W has given Canada Post 72 hours strike notice putting postal workers across the country in a legal strike position by Friday if a settlement isn’t reached.

The post office and its unionized workers have been at the bargaining table for months. The union has been able to call a strike since Nov. 3, however negotiations are continuing.

“Although we’ve given notice to Canada Post, the National Executive Board has not yet determined whether job action will take place immediately. It will depend on Canada Post’s actions at the bargaining table in the days to come,” say CUP-W officials in an update.

The union sites wage increases in line with inflation, improved staffing including filling vacancies monthly to address local staffing issues and adding 10 paid medical days to the seven personal days already in place and allowing the medical days to be banked.

Canada Post has not commented on the potential Friday strike.

It’s not clear how a postal strike would roll out; in the past CUP-W has begun work actions with rotating strikes, with service stopped in larger communities to add pressure to negotiations.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business says many small and medium-sized businesses depend on the postal system to ship goods, send marketing materials to consumers, send invoices, and receive payments from suppliers and customers.

When CUP-W went on strike in 2018, CFIB says 61 per cent of small firms reported they were negatively affected, particularly with challenges to cash flow due to delayed invoices and cheques and higher cost delivery alternatives.

“With the critical holiday shopping season around the corner and limited capacity to alternatives in many parts of Canada, avoiding a strike is important,” the organization said in a statement.

Many community newspapers, including The Independent, are delivered via Canada Post. Gordon Cameron, the executive director of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association, says a strike will have an impact to them.

“Delivering through Canada Post is often the only viable distribution option for local newspapers. Without that service, communities are much less informed than they should be. This is why both Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers need to come to an agreement to avoid any
prolonged shutdown,” he says.

The Independent will deliver the Nov. 14th edition to local post offices Wednesday as usual. Should there be a strike the following week, The Independent has partnered with local businesses, libraries and municipal governments, who have allowed us to place our newspapers in their spaces for pickup by our subscribers.