MONTREAL — Canada Post trucks, conveyors and mail carriers resumed operations Tuesday after a month-long strike by more than 55,000 postal employees that left many letters and packages in limbo.
Following a ministerial directive, the Canada Industrial Relations Board ordered postal workers to return to work after holding hearings over the weekend. These hearings aimed to determine whether the parties were too far apart to reach a negotiated agreement by the end of the year.
The resumption of operations brought relief to Canadians across the country in the midst of peak holiday shopping, even if some customers’ confidence in the 157-year-old institution came away a little shaken.
Narintip Wiang In said she was delighted and relieved to get back her Thai passport, which had arrived at a downtown Vancouver post office the day before the strike began.
“I didn’t have any news, so I didn’t know,” she said. I’ve been waiting for a month to get it back.”
She explained that she needed her passport to obtain a travel visa to the United States and was also applying for immigration to Canada because the deadline to file her application was close.
After leaving the post office, she said she went directly to Staples to mail the documents with FedEx because she no longer trusted the Postal Service with her important immigration documents.
“I don’t have much time left. This could result in my visa being refused.”
Canada Post warned customers to expect delays in processing large backlogs — “mail and packages are stuck in the system” — and that delays would likely persist into the new year.
“With a vast integrated network of processing plants, depots and post offices, stabilizing operations will take time and the company asks Canadians to be patient,” she wrote in a statement. Monday.
“Canada Post will begin processing mail and packages stuck in the network since the start of the strike on November 15 on a first-in, first-out basis,” it says.
Items stuck in the system include passports, health cards, Christmas cards and gifts, medications and even home cancer screening kits.
Canada Post processed an average of nearly 8.5 million letters and 1.1 million packages per weekday last year, and many more during the holiday season.
Post offices will not accept new commercial letters and packages until Thursday, the state-owned company announced.
They began accepting shipments from individuals Tuesday morning. Ontario resident Roland Horner dropped off envelopes containing donations to the Salvation Army and other charities shortly after the doors of a Burlington post office opened.
“I hope they will receive them before the end of the year,” he said.
Don Suppelsa, who is shipping a gift package to his sister and brother-in-law in Nova Scotia, complained that private carriers were taking advantage of Canadians in the absence of postal service.
“They were charging a lot more to send things, but I waited,” he argued at a post office in Oshawa, Ontario.
The union contests the return
The Canada Industrial Relations Board ordered workers to return to work after a directive from Labor Minister Steven MacKinnon, who said Friday he was giving both sides a “time out” as negotiations appeared to have stalled.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers, however, contests Ottawa’s intervention and indicates that the Canada Industrial Relations Board should hear its arguments in mid-January.
Canada Post employee Kim Gozzard said she was “very happy” to return to the office and that she was expecting a busy day.
“I feel wonderful to be back at work … taking care of my clients and hopefully getting things done,” she said in Oshawa.
Ms. Gozzard indicated that although Ottawa’s intervention will put the union in a weaker position in the next round of negotiations, it was necessary to revive the service.
“I think both sides had to be willing to sit down and negotiate,” she said. “It shouldn’t have lasted this long and I blame both parties.”
Not all workers were back in uniform Tuesday. Employees refused to cross a picket line set up by a collection of union groups — not postal workers — at a Canada Post processing center near the Vancouver airport in Richmond, British Columbia.
Conflict still unresolved
Meanwhile, the conflict continues to simmer between Canada Post and its employees.
The main issues include salary increases and Canada Post’s desire to extend parcel delivery on weekends — the two parties do not agree on how to staff the necessary staff for this new service offering.
The loss-making Crown corporation touted the expansion as a way to increase revenue and compete with other carriers, arguing that a mix of part-time and full-time shifts would create flexibility while reducing costs . The union believes this approach threatens full-time positions.
The government has appointed a commission of inquiry into labor relations at the Post Office, which will have to look “also at the structural questions of the conflict” and publish a report by May 15 on how to conclude a new agreement.
“The investigation will be broad in scope, as it will examine the entire structure of Canada Post from a customer and business model perspective, given the difficult business environment that Canada Post currently faces,” said Friday the Minister of Labor. The organization has lost $3.3 billion since 2018, as postal mail has declined and competitors have gobbled up large shares of the parcel market.
With months of tough negotiations ahead, the holiday spirit permeated the halls of a downtown Fredericton post office.
Mary Bardsley arrived with Christmas cards and a Tim Hortons gift card for her post office employees. She said she’s not worried her holiday mail will be delayed. “I’ve lived a long life,” she said, laughing. I can handle almost anything.”
Jon MacNeill, a Fredericton resident, said the 32-day strike “wasn’t the end of the world.”
“I was happy to wait for them to come back,” he added.
Mr. MacNeill said he normally avoided sending gifts, but was planning to send some this year after part of his family moved to Newfoundland and Labrador.
“I didn’t bother going the private route because my family is pretty flexible (…) I think we’re lucky to have public services like this in Canada, and if we don’t If we don’t use and support them, we may not always have them.”
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