In a statement late on Sunday, Canada Post said the board had decided the company and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers are at an impasse in their negotiations.
“As a result, the CIRB has ordered employees to return to work and postal operations to begin to resume at 8am local time on December 17, 2024,” Canada Post stated.
A copy of the board’s decision was not immediately available. The union had yet to comment.
Some 55,000 workers walked off the job on November 15. A federally appointed mediator suspended negotiations between Canada Post and the CUPW union in late November, saying there was no point in continuing while the parties remained so far apart.
On Friday, federal labour minister Steven MacKinnon asked the CIRB to rule on whether an impasse had been reached.
Rural economic development minister Gudie Hutchings told Cabin Radio MacKinnon had “made the difficult decision to ask the industrial relations board to extend the current working agreement with the union until May of 2025, to get the Canada Post workers back to work.”
Canada Post said the industrial relations board had extended the existing collective agreement terms until May 22, as the federal government had expected.
The company said it had also “put forward an offer to implement a wage increase of five percent for employees, which was proposed in the company’s last global offer.”
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It wasn’t clear whether the union had accepted that offer. Canada Post said the offer – if accepted – would be backdated “to the day after each collective agreement expired,” with a payment of $1,000 “before Christmas” for all regular employees and $500 for temporary employees. Remaining retroactive pay would be “forwarded by the end of January.”
Rural and suburban mail carriers’ collective agreement expired on December 31, 2023. The agreement covering Canada Post’s urban unit expired on January 31, 2024.
In the Northwest Territories, around 30 CUPW members have been affected by the month-long strike. No mail has been accepted or delivered, and workers picketing the Yellowknife post office have said there is zero chance of any meaningful movement of mail before Christmas at this point.
Prior to the weekend CIRB hearing, the union had characterized MacKinnon’s decision to involve the labour relations board as government intervention that “tramples On workers’ rights.”
“This order continues a deeply troubling pattern in which successive federal governments have used back-to-work legislation or, in this case, its arbitrary powers to let employers off the hook from bargaining in good faith,” the union said on Friday.
“What employer would move on anything when they know the government will bail them out? Once again, the government has chosen capital over workers by taking away our leverage to get a good deal.”
This is a breaking news story. More follows.
