Canada Post says workers to return Tuesday after labour board ruling

Operations at Canada Post will resume at 8 a.m. local time on Tuesday, Dec. 17, the company said, after the Canada Industrial Relations Board ordered a return to work.

Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon on Friday directed the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order the 55,000 picketing employees back to work if a deal wasn’t doable before the end of the year.

“Postal services will resume on Tuesday. The CIRB has found that Canada Post and CUPW are unlikely to reach a deal by the end of the year,” MacKinnon said. “An Industrial Inquiry Commission will also be looking into the structural issues of the conflict and will issue a report on May 15. This report will serve as a solid basis for both parties to negotiate their collective agreements.”

Canada Post provided the following details about how it would get up and running again:

Parcels, Lettermail and Direct Marketing mail

• On a first-in, first-out basis, Canada Post will start working through the mail and parcels trapped in the system since the strike began on November 15, 2024.
• New commercial volumes will not be accepted into the network until Thursday, December 19.
• Service guarantees are suspended as the company ramps up operations.
• Canadians should expect delivery delays through the remainder of 2024 and into January 2025.
• Post office hours of operation may vary as the company works to stabilize operations.

International mail and parcels

• Canada Post will work to process a significant accumulation of international mail and parcels currently queued up to enter the postal system.
• Customers should expect delays into 2025.
• The postal system will start accepting new international mail on December 23.

In the meantime, Canada Post says it has agreed with the union to implement a five per cent wage increase, retroactive to the day after the collective agreements expired.

The union did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the resumption of work.

It said on Friday that MacKinnon’s intervention was part of a troubling pattern in which the government lets employers off the hook for not bargaining in good faith with workers and their unions.

Business groups had increasingly been calling on the government to intervene as companies and individuals scrambled to find alternative modes of delivery with the holiday shopping season in full swing.

Ottawa used section 107 of the Labour Code to issue its directive Friday after using the same powers to intervene earlier this year in disputes at the country’s railways and ports, directing the board to order workers back to work and impose binding arbitration.

MacKinnon called the move a creative solution by not sending the matter directly to binding arbitration — as the government did in the earlier standoffs.

“We’re calling a timeout,” MacKinnon told reporters in Ottawa on Friday.

“Suffice to say positions appeared to have hardened and it became clear to me we were in a total impasse.”