Striking postal workers and supporters from the community and other local unions held a rally in front of Canada Post’s downtown Kingston location on Tuesday as strike action hit its 5th day.
There are roughly 180 striking members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and the President of Local 556, Tim Ashworth, says they’re primarily fighting for fair wage increases in a new contract.
He says while Canada Post says they’ve offered a raise that is in line with the current rate of inflation, but members feel they still have some catching up to do.
“In July, 2021, the union voted to extend our collective bargaining agreements, and we agreed for a temporary extension at a 2% wage increase per year… In 2022 and 2023, the Canada inflation rate increased 10.7% over those two years,” Ashworth said.
“Canada Post is saying that they’re offering a wage increase in line with current inflation, but they’re neglecting to say that we lost our buying power as a workforce over those two years in 2022 and 2023. And we agreed to that extension in good faith and Canada Post isn’t holding their part of the bargain.”
Additionally Ashworth says the bargaining team wants to protect pension plans for future Canada Post employees, something that has not been guaranteed by their employer, and union members don’t want to work on a “divided work floor”.
“They don’t want to give the same pension plan to new hires that they currently provide for our current members,” Ashworth said.
“They want to make it a two tier system… we want the same rights for all our members, we want the same rights for the future.”
Talks between Canada Post and the union resumed on Monday with a federally appointed mediator, however the two sides are still believed to be far apart.
The two sides have, however, essentially entered into a truce to ensure Canadians continue to receive socioeconomic cheques like disability payments, Canadian Pension Plan payments and employment insurance.
These cheques will be delivered on November 20 by members who are receiving a $50 honorarium, most of who are donating it to charity according to Ashworth.
Canada Post warned Canadians on Friday to expect service delays due to the strike.
“Canada Post’s operations will shut down during a national strike, affecting millions of Canadians and businesses across the country,” the statement reads.
“Mail and parcels will not be processed or delivered for the duration of the national strike, and some post offices will be closed. Service guarantees will be impacted for items already in the postal network. No new items will be accepted until the national disruption is over.”
Canada Post also added that even when the strike ends, Canadians should expect a period of delayed service as the organization tries to catch up.
Earlier this year, Canada Post announced it had lost $748 million as an organization in 2023, placing the blame largely on high labour costs concurrently with a surge in parcel delivery competition.
CUPW doesn’t agree with the fact that labour costs are being blamed, and Ashworth said from 2017 non-labour spending ballooned by 55.5% while wages grew 14% over that same time period.
Local community adapting to life without CP
People in Kingston and across the country were given three days notice of the strike action, although updates from both sides were released throughout the lengthy process that started just over a year ago.
The implications have been wide reaching for organizations, businesses and people that depend on Canada Post, and many still have questions about how far the impact goes.
In Kingston community Facebook groups people sought out answers for certain issues that hadn’t seemed to be addressed anywhere to that point.
The City of Kingston last week also released a list of what to do during a postal disruption, including how to pay bills and parking tickets.
City clerk Janet Jaynes said as of Monday there hadn’t seemed to be much confusion so far, but they hadn’t received any feedback either positive or negative in the early days of the strike.
She says at this point the city hasn’t assessed if there will have to be any kind of procedural changes if the strike stretches out in the longterm.
“That would be a later call,” Jaynes said.
“Not something we’ve assessed at this point, but we will be monitoring the situation and we’ll make the necessary adjustments as we go along.”
The closer the strike stretches to Christmas the more complication there is likely to be around the busiest time of year for parcel delivery, but Ashworth says that wasn’t a strategic move by the union.
He says Canada Post have delayed things
“We’ve been in negotiations since January this year and Canada post didn’t even come to the bargaining table with a wage offer until the end of September,” Ashworth said.
“They haven’t made any reasonable offers. We voted over 95% for the strike mandate.”
Bargaining continues throughout the week between the two sides.
