Canada Post staff to return to work Tuesday after labour board ruling

Workers are still on the picket line but mail will begin moving Tuesday as Canada Post employees return to their jobs after more than a month on strike following intervention from the feds.

Canada Post said late Sunday — just before midnight — that after two days of hearings over the weekend an impasse was declared by the board.

Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon directed the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order postal staff back to work if the tribunal determines a deal isn’t doable before the end of the year.

Postal services will resume on Tuesday. The Canada Industrial Relations Board has found that Canada Post and CUPW are unlikely to reach a deal by the end of the year. The Board has therefore ordered an extension of the current collective agreements, and a resumption of…

— Steven MacKinnon (@stevenmackinnon) December 16, 2024

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers’ (CUPW) 55,000 union members were ordered back to work under their existing contracts, which have now been extended until May 22 of next year to allow the bargaining process to resume.

In the meantime, the crown corporation says it has agreed with the union to implement a five per cent wage increase retroactive to the day after the collective agreements expired almost a year ago.

The union has yet to comment on this latest development but on Friday it said they strongly disagreed with any government intervention.

“We denounce in the strongest terms this assault on our constitutionally protected right to free and fair collective bargain and our right to strike,” the CUPW said in a statement.

Business groups had been calling on the federal government to intervene as companies and Canadians scrambled to find alternative modes of delivery in the Christmas shopping season.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business says it will be too late to salvage any holiday shipments.

It estimates that small businesses have lost a total of $1.6 billion since the strike began and reports that an estimated 75 per cent of businesses across the country plan to reduce their dependence on Canada Post moving forward.

Mail operations resume 8 a.m. Tuesday morning.

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