Local postal workers have walked off the job as they join more than 55,000 Canada Post employees across the country after the union failed to reach an agreement with the Crown corporation. Local mail and parcels are expected to be affected by the strike.--NEWS PHOTO BRENDAN MILLER
bmiller@medicinehatnews.com
Local Canada Post workers were among those to hit the picket lines Friday after the Canadian Union of Postal Workers announced a national strike that began at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time.
According to the union, approximately 55,000 postal workers went on the nationwide strike, locally more than 100 postal workers in Medicine Hat, Redcliff and surrounding communities including Brooks are on strike after the union failed to reach an agreement with the federal Crown corporation.
Dozens of local workers gathered in solidarity with signs reading “CUPW on Strike” outside the Canada Post office along Kipling Street, saying their fight is for a fair wage and improved working conditions.
Workers are demanding wage increases that align with inflation and the removal of the two-tier wage system that pays new postal workers without experience around $17 an hour.
“That’s just not acceptable,” says Karen Hellawell, vice-president CUPW 776, who explains postal workers do not have increases based on inflation built into their salaries. “It’s another thing that we’re fighting for now because of how quickly the cost of living went up. If you can’t live off a postal worker wage, there is something desperately wrong.”
Along with increased wages, the union is seeking enhancements to group benefits including increased coverage for health specialists and fertility care and gender-affirming care, as well as safer working conditions and higher short-term disability payments.
Hellawell says that in more than a year of negotiations, Canada Post has put forward two offers that were turned down by the union.
“Neither one of them is addressing the real issues, things like our pension plan, which is desperately important to all organized labour.”
Postal workers are also fighting for service expansion and want the co-operation to adopt postal banking and an e-commerce platform, as well as offer a check-in service for seniors or others who live alone in the community.
“That is increasing service that the public ought to have,” says Hellawell. “We have come to them with numerous solutions to problems on how to expand service. This could be a really good thing for Canada Post and the workers and they’re just stonewalling us.”
The latest offer from the Crown corporation was presented to workers following a 21-day cooling-off period that ended Nov. 2.
“We’ve presented enhanced offers that demonstrate we’re serious about reaching negotiated agreements without a labour disruption,” states a Canada Post press release from Oct. 29.
Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon spoke to reporters and said the federal government is still committed to continuing negotiations with the union on reaching an agreement.
“I would characterize negotiations as extremely difficult,” said MacKinnon. “There are many big issues to solve at the table and not a lot of progress has been made on those big issues.”
Mail and parcels will not be delivered during the strike and some post offices, including the Kipling Street location, have been closed. Customers are expected to experience delays for the duration of the strike, as well as a period of time following the strike to catch up with any backlog.
The union has agreed to continue delivering the next round of government benefit cheques that include Canada Child Benefit, old age security and the Canada Pension Plan.
At this time it’s unclear whether certain regions will be prioritized for essential mail delivery.
In August, the Liberal government imposed back-to-work legislation that brought an end to a strike that lasted less than 24-hours involving thousands of unionized workers with the Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City.
