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Ottawa puts Canada Post offer up to vote by union members

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Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu said Thursday she’s putting Canada Post’s latest offers to unionized postal workers up for a vote.

She hopes this will break a long-standing impasse between the two parties.

Hajdu posted on X at around 9:19 a.m. saying that it was in the “public interest” to give members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) a chance to vote on the offers, which the corporation said are its “final” proposals.


Hajdu said the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) will be directed to conduct the vote “as soon as possible.”

READ MORE: Canada Post rejects union terms for arbitration as both sides enter bitter stalemate

Canada Post welcomes ratification vote after 18 months of negotiations

The Crown corporation said in a released statement that it welcomes the minister’s decision to provide employees a chance to vote and have a voice on a new collective agreement.

“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,” said Lisa Liu, a spokesperson for the Canada Post in the statement.

Canada Post said the vote administered by the CIRB will also give employees in the Urban and Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers (RSMC) bargaining units an opportunity to have their say on their final offers.

The corporation had presented their final offers to employees in the Urban and RSMC bargaining units on May 28.

CUPW condemns forced vote on Canada Post’s “final” proposal

The postal workers union, which represents about 55,000 mail workers, responded to the minister’s decision with their own statement, that said Canada Post and the government were colluding to take away the rights of postal workers to freely and fairly bargain collective agreements.

“They seek to overturn and re-write decades of hard-won rights and working conditions to make unilateral changes to collective agreements,” reads the CUPW statement.

The union said its leadership and its negotiating committees will be recommending to members to vote no on these offers.

“Forced deals will not achieve labour peace,” reads the statement.

The statement also said CUPW members will remain on an overtime ban Thursday.

With files from The Canadian Press.

READ MORE: Postal workers union expected to respond to request for forced vote

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