Canada Post strike

Postal strike halts mail delivery across Canada

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Mail delivery across the country has been essentially paralyzed since 55,000 unionized Canada Post staff walked off the job on Nov. 15.

“After a year of bargaining with little progress, postal workers made the difficult decision to strike. … Canada Post left us no choice when it threatened to change our working conditions and leave our members exposed to layoffs,” Yannick Scott, national director (Montreal Metro region) of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), said in a statement on the day the strike began.

In a notice on its website, Canada Post warned people planning to send and receive mail to “be prepared for possible delays.

“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,” the statement said.

Although people will not be able to send mail for the duration of the strike, those who receive Old Age Security and Canada Pension Plan payments from the federal government as cheques will still receive their cheques, due to an essential services agreement between CUPW and the government. Quebec social assistance cheques as well as cheques from the Quebec workplace safety commission (CNESST) and auto insurance authority (SAAQ), the provincial indemnity program for victims of crime and certain other government programs will still be distributed; people can also opt to pick up their cheque in person at a Service Québec centre on presentation of government-issued photo ID or designate a proxy to do so.

Canada Post warned that once the strike ends, it may take some time to fully resume service. “Items will be delivered as quickly as possible once operations resume. All mail and parcels in the postal network will be secured and delivered as quickly as possible on a first-in, first-out basis once operations resume. However, a national strike of any length will impact service to Canadians well after the strike activity ends. Shutting down facilities across the country will affect Canada Post’s entire national network. Processing and delivery may take some time to fully return to normal.”

Federal labour minister Steven MacKinnon has ruled out passing a law to force postal personnel back to work “for the moment.”

“We’re putting all our efforts into [discussions] around the table to facilitate a negotiated agreement,” he told reporters.

No CUPW or Canada Post representative had responded to requests for further comment from the QCT by press time.