‘Nothing new’: Postal workers share mixed feelings on back to work order

Although the federal labour relations board has ordered Canada Post back to work for Tuesday, local postal union members held the picket line at an Orillia post office Monday. 

“What we have been told is, up to this point, to hold the line,” said local union president, Dan Greer, on Monday morning.

Over the weekend, the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) ordered the 55,000 striking employees back to work, with operations set to resume on 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, the Crown Corporation said on its website. 

However, local workers had yet to receive official direction as of Monday morning, Greer said, and formed a picket line once again during the month-long strike.

“As of right now, our national union in Ottawa is studying the order and figuring out what we're doing next. At this point, I believe the order states we're back to work tomorrow, but we haven't got our official (direction) of what's happening.”

On Friday, Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon asked the CIRB to order postal workers back to work should a deal be unlikely near by year’s end, with the board determining over the weekend that Canada Post and the union are still too far apart in negotiations.

As a result, CIRB has extended the union’s existing collective agreements to May, and Canada Post has agreed to implement a retroactive five per cent wage increase to the day after the previous agreements expired. 

Greer said the local union has “mixed feelings” about getting ordered back to work.

“We've been without pay for a month here. The five per cent is not what we've been asking for, but it's a start to at least put some money in people's pockets,” he said.

“We're not happy about the order overall — we wanted a negotiated agreement, so we're not excited that this order happened," said Greer.

“When you tell members, they've gone a month without pay, and now we're going back to work without a new collective agreement, it's pretty disheartening for people,” he said. 

As the strike has not been resolved through arbitration, like in previous strikes, Greer said discussions will continue in the months ahead. 

“They’re not talking about binding arbitration — it's simply back to work until May under our old collective agreement with a 5 per cent raise, and that negotiations would still be happening as normal,” he said. 

However, Greer said he the union is unhappy the federal government stepped in — pointing the fact that the union’s collective agreements expired nearly a year ago, and Canada Post did not strike a deal with workers before the strike took place. 

“They've had all year to work this out, and I feel like Canada Post doesn't even try to negotiate because they're just expecting the government to step in and do this,” he said. “It weakens us before we even start.”

The fact the government has historically stepped in to order the union back to work likely slowed negotiations, Greer said. 

“We're never a supporter of the government getting involved, and I think the past precedent of them doing it has really slowed down our negotiations this time,” he said. 

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers most recently requested a 19 per cent wage increase over four years, improved sick leave, a cost-of-living allowance, and more. 

Canada Post has previously stated  financial pressures have made the union’s demands challenging. The Crown Corporation reported a $490 million loss in the first half of 2024 and a 28 per cent drop in parcel volumes since CUPW announced its strike mandate in late October.

As the strike dragged on, creating issues for small business and holding up vital donation cheques to charities, Greer said his “heart aches for the charities,” but reiterated that Canada Post should have worked out a deal with the union before it reached this point. 

“All I can say is, we want to be working, and Canada Post should have got serious about negotiating well before the Christmas season was coming,” he said. 

For Mike Smit, a mail carrier who has worked out of the Orillia office for 22 years, the order back to work feels like “nothing new.”

“They did this with Harper back in 2011 ordering us back to work, and Trudeau ordered us back to work,” he said. “This is nothing new, except that during COVID we had a contract due, and they pushed that ahead … so we're already six years overdue for an effective contract to negotiate.”

As negotiations continue, Smit said he hopes to see equitable terms arrived at for both urban and rural postal workers, as well as long-time and newer employees. 

“There's still a big separation right on the work floor, amongst the workers doing the same job, yet getting paid differently and having separate rights,” he said. “That's a really big sticking point, that the future of the job depends on the new workers.”