Thursday June 12, 2025 | NATIONAL NEWS – reporting from VICTORIA, BC [Posted 3 pm PT | Updated 4:09 pm PT]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu has accepted a request from Canada Post to take their final offer off the negotiating table and have the Canadian Industrial Relations Board put it to the union members for a vote by all employees.
The approximately 55,000 employees are unionized within the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW).
“After 18 months of negotiation and 200 meetings between the parties, 33 days of strike and a walkout in the fall and ongoing strain placed on Canada’s small businesses and communities, it is in the public interest that the member of CUPW has the opportunity to vote on Canada Post’s latest offer,” said Minister Hajdu in a statement today.
Vote to happen asap:
The Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) will be directed to conduct the vote “as soon as possible,” she stated. Canada Post sees this as giving employees in the Urban and RSMC (Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers) bargaining units “the opportunity to have their say on Canada Post’s final offers”.
The vote will take place on the Canada Post offers of May 28, 2025 as presented to CUPW for employees in the Urban and RSMC bargaining units.
Back on June 3, Hajdu had directed CUPW to return to the bargaining table with their employer Canada Post Corporation.
At that time, she said: “Canadians expect the parties to resolve this dispute one way or another. To do that they must meet and pursue these two paths with urgency. Federal mediators are waiting to engage with the parties,” said Minister Hajdu in a statement today.
Reactions:
“Obviously the preferred method of going to a ratification vote would be through a negotiated settlement between the parties. But after 18 months, hundreds of meetings, thousands of hours discussing — we’re still at an impasse even with a strike. So we want to be able to move forward. We’re disappointed and a bit pissed off that the Minister again is tipping the scale of justice toward the employer. If it’s a no vote, we end up back in the situation we’re going to be, bargaining again,” said a representative of CUPW today on national TV.
The union said in a bulletin on June 3 that a “forced vote is a direct attack on the most basic rights of trade unions to represent their members”.
In a media statement issued today by Canada Post, the corporation’s spokesperson Lisa Liu said Canada Post welcomes the vote, adding “it will provide employees with the opportunity to have a voice and vote on a new collective agreement at a critical point in our history.”
“A negotiated agreement between the parties has always been the preferred path to an employee ratification vote, however the parties remain at a major impasse,” Liu said.
Message to Canada Post employees:
“A negotiated agreement between the parties has always been the preferred path to an employee ratification vote,” it was stated in an email from Canada Post to their business customers today.
“However, the parties remain at a major impasse after 18 months of negotiations, a national strike and an Industrial Inquiry Commission that detailed the challenges facing us, and what needs to be done to begin addressing them,” the Corporation stated.
Overtime ban continues:
CUPW workers continue to hold to an overtime ban that started May 23 as part of their legal right to strike which started May 23. Under those conditions, postal delivery services continue but within regular working hours. Any leftover work is left to the next day. This will in many cases likely slow down service for businesses and household mail.
Analysis:
A forced vote may normally send a message to employers that they don’t have to meet the union’s demands at the bargaining table – they can instead count on the government to bail them out. But this situation has gone on for an extraordinarily long time. It has hardly been a knee-jerk reaction by the Minister.
A forced vote may erode the overall confidence of unionized workers as to the strength of their bargaining rights. But again, in this case the extraordinary duration of the labour dispute puts this situation that is relatively new — especially when considering the future of the very company that employs these workers and the broad economic impacts on businesses, households and communities across the country.
===== RELATED:
- Jobs Minister sends Canada Post workers back to bargaining table (June 4, 2025)
- 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)
- Carney’s mandate letter to cabinet addresses economy and security (May 21, 2025)
- Canada Post workers strike set to begin on May 23 (May 20, 2025)
- Canada Post needs revamp but commissioner’s recommendations fall short (May 19, 2025)
- Canada Post pauses negotiations before possible postal worker strike (May 14, 2025)
- Carney combines experience and new ideas in first full cabinet (May 13, 2025)
- Breakdown of Canada Post mediated talks with postal workers (March 2, 2025)
- Canada Post parcel invoice system upgrade (February 13, 2025)
- Quietly stabilizing Canada Post with a $1.034 billion loan (January 24, 2025)
- Jan 13: Canada Post letter mail & parcel prices up (January 14, 2025)
- Canada Post domestic parcel service now fully restored (January 7, 2025)
- Canada Post service resumes Dec 17 with workers back on the job (December 17, 2024)
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