CUPW urges members to reject Canada Post’s latest offer as voting period opens

After nearly two years, the 55,000 unionized employees that make up the backbone of Canada Post will begin voting on what the crown corporation has called its “final” offer on Monday.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) is calling on its members to reject the offer.

“Canada Post’s offer, creating this flexible part-time work, does not work for the workers,” says Mark Lubinski the President of CUPW Local Toronto.

“We cannot live in a Canada where people need to have 3 to 4 jobs just to be able to survive.”

From now until August 1, employees will be able to vote on the offer either in person, or by phone, which includes a wage hike of roughly 13% over four years.

“It’s the choice of employees on how they want to vote, it’s a secret ballot, and we’re hoping they vote yes. That they see that our offers are a reasonable path forward and provide the certainty they are looking for after 19 months of negotiations and two rounds of strike activity by CUPW that’s cost them significantly,” says Jon Hamilton, a spokesperson for Canada Post.

“If there’s no vote, I’m not going to speculate on exactly what’s going to happen there, but the reality is that the uncertainty that has been impacting our business significantly, will continue.”

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That uncertainty is not just affecting Canada Post, but one of its largest, most reliable customer bases too, according to a new survey, from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).

After probing over two thousand small business owners from across the nation, it found that nearly two in three small businesses would likely stop using Canada Post entirely if another strike were to occur.

“Look, Canada Post is losing 10 million dollars a day, but during the strike, small business owners were losing millions of dollars every single day themselves, by the gap at Canada Post,” says Dan Kelly, the President of CFIB.

“This was costing small business owners nearly a billion dollars during the last strike. These are massive, massive amounts.”

If workers at Canada Post do decide to ratify this latest offer, the new agreement would stay in place until January 2028.

READ MORE: Canada Post’s CUPW employees to vote on final offers starting July 21