Deja Vu all Over Again: Canada Post Strike Possible Soon

Jeff Green | Oct 23, 2024

A friend of mine pulled me over the other day, and said, in a whisper, that they had heard a rumour that there may be a postal strike coming in November.

I knew about it because, as a Canada Post customer, we receive updates from the company about potential service issues, and we have received a half dozen updates over the past few months about the state of contract negotiations between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). We are also registered with CUPW to receive email updates, and they have been coming in regularly. At the same time, starting in the spring, Canada Post has been in the national news talking about the state of the company's finances, which they say are not good, with operating losses compounding each other every quarter.

This headline and kicker at cbc.ca/news on May 4th was the first in a series: “Crown corporation could run out of money in less than a year, cites declining revenue and stiff competition -  Canada Post lost $748 million last year, warns of 'critical' financial situation.

“Partly as the result of a previous labour dispute, and partly because of the onset of aggressive competition, the Canada Post share of the massive parcel delivery business that has exploded in recent years with the jump in ecommerce, has diminished from 62% of the market in 2019, to just 29% in 2023.

Lower wages in the private sector are cited as one of the reasons that commercial operators are more competitive, but at least in a rural context, Canada Post has an advantage because it already has a delivery network, and locations for pickup in place.

This scenario is the backdrop for contract negotiations that have not gone particularly well, between management and union negotiators who have a long history of not coming to agreements. 

In 2016, a lockout resulted in service being halted for two weeks, and in 2018 a series of rotating strikes slowed service for a similar period. In both cases, government intervention resulted in the dispute being sent to binding arbitration.

In terms of wages, the two sides are very far apart in the current negotiations. CUPW's proposal of a 12.5% increase in wages in the first year, and 4.5% in the second year of a two year contract, which they say is  necessary to catch up  because of inflation in 2022 and 2023, was recently countered by an offer from management  of a 10.5% increase, over 4 years.

The contract dispute went to a mediation process, which failed, and the two parties are currently in a “cooling off period” which ends on Sunday, November 3rd, at which time CUPW will be in a legal strike position, and Canada Post will also have the option to lock workers out.

The impact of a strike at Canada Post would not be the same, in 2024, as it would have been 25 years ago. Mail does not come every day any more, and bills and payments are delivered electronically to most of us.

The timing of the potential strike/lockout is not a coincidence. The Christmas delivery season kicks off after Halloween. When the rotating strikes took place in 2018, it was closer to Christmas and resulted in a backlog in parcel delivery that took weeks to overcome.

But in 2024, if there are rotating strikes, other carriers may take up much of the slack, and perhaps the Canada Post share of parcel delivery would  drop to 25% or 20% of the market as a result, making Canada Post an even weaker company.

This may not be a major issue for a lot of people, but here at the Frontenac News, we are dependent on Canada Post.

Canada Post is an expensive delivery mechanism, the single highest cost our business faces each week, but to set up a complete delivery system to every home on every back road in Frontenac County, Addington Highlands, and the Maberly area, would not be an easy task for us to accomplish, if it were possible at all.

As many readers have informed us over the past few years, staffing difficulties at Canada Post have made delivery less reliable than it was 10 years ago, even through Canada Post.  

There are days when post masters are simply unable to find drivers for all the routes. We bring our paper to each local post office in time for Thursday delivery, each and every week. That is our guarantee, to readers and advertisers, but delivery is sometimes delayed until Friday or Monday in some locations

In 2018, we were lucky that the rotating strikes did not impact our delivery, but in 2016 it was a different story and there were a couple of weeks when we made use of a network of businesses to make the paper available. 

Both sides in this dispute have something to lose if there is a strike, and the federal government may intervene quickly, because a postal strike would be ammunition for the opposition, something the current government does not really need, so parcel delivery and your weekly paper may keep rolling in as normal come November

If not, we will do our best to get the paper out through other means. Of course, all of our content remains available at Frontenacnews.ca and Everythingfrontenac.ca.

But there is no doubt that the print edition of the Frontenac News remains at the core of our business, and Canada Post is the only viable delivery mechanism that is available to deliver the paper to readers.