Ahead of a possible Canada Post Strike, that could happen as early as Friday, MooseFM spoke with Peter Denley, National Director of Central Region Canada Post Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), the union that represents Bancroft and Barry’s Bay.
Denley spoke about what’s at stake in the current bargaining, referencing the revenue lost in Canada Posts share of the parcel market.
“Canada Post had mid 60% of the parcel market in around 2019 and it’s now dwindled to 24%. The issue is they sat and watched that happen when they could have contacted the union.”
Denley continued, saying it’s in everyone’s best interest that Canada Post be profitable.
“We’ve done all sorts of experiments and fixed all sorts of stuff to make Canada Post, profitable because we don’t want to see Canada Post go down. This is our jobs, right? And we want to make sure they’re working.[But] they [Canada Post] created this mess and now they’re trying to solve it on the backs of the workers and that’s simply not acceptable.”
Denley went on to say that Canada Post currently does not want to give new hires a proper pension and benefits or guaranteed work hours.
“We could have been delivering parcels on the weekend, which is what Canada Post wants and frankly we’ve wanted since 2016 and we could have worked together to fix that. Instead Canada Post showed up at the table, they’re being really inflexible. They want to really modify our collective agreement.”
Canada Post has received strike notices from CUPW, for both Urban and RSMC (Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers) bargaining units.
The notices indicate that CUPW will be in a legal position to begin strike activity on Nov. 15 at 12:01 a.m. ET.
