After more than two weeks out on the November cold, striking postal workers continue to huddle around their campfires trying to keep spirits stoked for a labour dispute that has no immediate end on sight.
Another snowy day is in store for the 204 members from Prince George, Vanderhoof, Mackenzie, Burns Lake and Fraser Lake who are form the Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 812. For the 15th day since the strike began, they are back on the picket lines at three Prince George locations - Fifth Avenue and Quebec Street, 15th Avenue and Nicholson Street and the sorting plant on Penn Road.
They work for Canada Post as letter carriers, rural/suburban mail carriers (RSMC), drivers, sorters and clerks. They were among the 55,000 workers nationwide who walked off the job Nov. 15 hoping to get a fair deal that addresses their concerns about wages, pensions and safe working conditions.
“Wages are always a contender because we want to at least stay in line with the cost of living and inflation, I think everybody wants that” said CUPW Local 812 president Rick Harris. “For us there’s lot of health and safety concerns with the letter carriers and our RSMCs. We have a very healthy pension and they want to change the pension, of course, so their contribution isn’t as much.”
Harris says none of the 204 employees he represents have been affected by Canada Post’s decision Thursday to lay off striking workers.
“To the best of my knowledge we’ve had no members here in our local laid off,” said Harris. “They did start calling people and taking them out of (short-term assignments), when there’s a sickness for longer than 10 days and they will put casuals into those terms. But that’s not considered a layoff as far as I’m concerned.
“I don’t understand the move by Canada Post, personally, it doesn’t make any sense to me, other than to try and scare people. Our national grievance officer is saying the layoffs won’t stand up, they’re not a legal action.”
Canada Post, a Crown corporation, has registered losses of $3 billion since 2018. In 2023 alone the losses totalled $748 million and there was a $348 million drop reported in the third quarter of 2024 ,which the company says indicates an unstainable business model.
Harris says the company has itself to blame for that.
“They just built a new $750 million plant in Oshawa, they bought a whole fleet of EVs right across the country that was right around a billion dollars that they don’t have infrastructure for, so there’s been a lot of spending,” said Harris.
“It’s funny to me that if you have a corporation that’s bleeding money as they claim to be, I didn’t make any decision on how that money was spent. The workers on the line delivering the parcels, we’re the ones actually doing the work generating the income. If we’re looking to anybody to point fingers at, I certainly wouldn't be looking at the people on the line right now.”
While Harris admits letter mail has dropped with the advent of email, parcel deliveries and online shopping continue to boom and Canada Post has the necessary infrastructure to deliver to any address in Canada, which other carrier do not.
“I think some of the negative public perception is it’s antiquated and out of date but there’s a lot of people right now saying their business is hurting because Canada Post is on strike,” said Harris. “It can’t be both. It can’t be antiquated and out of date and yet needed.”
The company wants to hire more temporary and part-time staff to expand delivery services to weekends to be able to compete with the Amazons of the world that hire cheaper non-unionized labour to deliver parcels to doorsteps seven days a week.
“CUPW agrees that weekend delivery is a smart move to keep up with competitors and there’s already provisions in our contract right now that allow for weekend delivery and the corporation isn’t big on those because those are full-time jobs,” said Harris.
“They’re looking to pay somebody eight or 16 hours a week to do weekend delivery at the lowest rate.”
The average hourly wage for Canada Post employees on Canada is $24.72. In Prince George, letter carriers make between $20 and $27 per hour.
The 55,000 workers are receiving strike pay, which amounts to less than $60 per day.
Harris said Canada Post want to create a two-tiered benefits package that would keep the existing plan for current employees but would reduce the benefits paid to new workers hired.
“It’s cold out there and Christmas is coming for everybody,” said Harris, a 20-year employee who works as a postal clerk at the Penn Road sorting plant. “We started negotiating in with Canada Post back in November 2023. It took them 10 months to come up with an offer.. and it wasn’t much of an offer.
“For us veteran people, we’re not just standing on the line for ourselves and what we want to hang on to and the wages we’d like to have a bit higher. We’re also doing it for people who come along. It’s a longstanding service that needs to be healthy.”
