Monday June 2, 2025 | NATIONAL NEWS reporting from VICTORIA, BC [Posted at 12 noon PST | Updated 1:32 pm]
Political economic analysis by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Canada Post Corporation (CPC) has rejected the proposal by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) for going to binding arbitration.
That would take up to 18 months, said Canada Post in a statement on June 1, 2025.
Canada Post now awaits a decision from the Minister of Jobs and Families, Patty Hajdu, on the crown corporation’s request for the Canada Industrial Relations Board to administer a directed employee vote on their final offer. Essentially, that means forcing the unionized workers to vote on the currentlyproposed agreement.
This position by Canada Post is an effort to keep services running for its customers (and the broader benefits to the Canadian economy and society) while giving itself a fighting chance to revise its business operations for greater revenues and overall financial sustainability.
Canada Post has now been in a revenue-loss (deficit) position for seven years in a row — 2018 through 2024) as the gap widens between operational efficiency and operational obligations to pay unionized employees who have expectations of maintaining a working reality that seems stuck in the past.
Canada Post says to its business customers in yesterday’s statement: “We know this ongoing uncertainty is challenging. Your business requires certainty and consistent, reliable service.”
Union position:
“This refusal constitutes yet another demonstration that CPC is not interested in a reasonable outcome to this round of negotiation. A forced vote may fail to end the labour conflict and risks further division, prolonging uncertainty for all parties. Arbitration would end the labour dispute immediately and create certainty for all Canadians,” said CUPW in a June 1 statement in its own defence.
“CUPW strongly believes that CPC’s pursuit of a government-imposed vote on its last global offers will not bring lasting labour peace between the parties, regardless of the vote’s outcome,” it was stated by the union on June 1.
“Our goal continues to be negotiated collective agreements that support the well-being of workers, the communities we serve, and the sustainability of the public post,” says CUPW.
However, negotiating or renegotiating for things that the corporation cannot now fiscally provide creates a scenario for minimal to no success for the viability of Canada Post.
As Island Social Trends outlined in an editorial on May 19, it’s time for government to change the Canada Post mandate, to activate a new technological vision and functionality, and to use this labour strife scenario as a leadership opportunity for how job security might work going forward in this decade and beyond.
===== RELATED:
- Integrative bargaining may bring Canada Post & CUPW closer to resolution but new federal direction needed (May 25, 2025)
- Canada Post workers still on the job with overtime ban (May 23, 2025)
- Canada Post’s new offer to postal workers union could avert strike (May 21, 2025)
- Canada Post needs revamp but commissioner’s recommendations fall short (May 19, 2025)
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