It’s unclear when mail will appear in your local post office box

The Independent

The mail will start moving again Saturday.

CUP-W says Canada Post workers across the country will move from a nation-wide strike to rotating strikes. “This will start mail and parcels moving, while continuing our struggle for good collective agreements and a strong public postal service,” said the union in an early morning news release.

Workers walked off the job the same day the federal government gave Canada Post free reign to reorganize the crown corporation by removing the moratorium on closing rural post offices, ending door-to-door delivery and changing delivery times. They’ve been off the job for two weeks without further negotiations.

“We did not take the decision to move to a nation-wide strike lightly. Postal workers would much rather have new collective agreements and be delivering mail instead of taking strike action,” said CUP-W President Jan Simpson in a news release.                                                

“Yet, we could not stand by as the government announced its plans to allow Canada Post to gut our postal service and slash thousands of our jobs.,” she said that the corporation has “chipped away” at postal services and workers rights over the years. “The government’s announcement on September 25 also emboldened Canada Post to continue making a mockery of the bargaining process.” 

CUP-W’s national executive board and negotiating committees met with the Minister responsible for Canada Post, Joel Lightbound, Thursday and outlined its concerns with the changes he announced, pointed out there would be $376 million of new revenue because of a postage increase. The union also raised the issue of the structural problems within the corporation, including the union’s concern that management has been using “Purolator to run Canada Post into the ground.”

“We called on the Minister to rescind his planned service cuts which he announced September 25. However, at the end of the meeting the Minister said the announcements he made would stand,” says Simpson.

“The union also reminded the Minister that the only way for this dispute to come to an end is for Canada Post to offer postal workers ratifiable collective agreements. The government’s interventions have only emboldened the employer and undermined free and fair collective bargaining.”

The union says rotating strike locations will be announced as they happen. It’s not clear how quickly mail will begin to appear in your local post office during the rotating strikes.