If you're expecting a package or mail anytime soon, you'll be waiting longer than normal.
Canada Post workers all across the country are on picket lines and rotating strikes while the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and Canada Post are deadlocked in negotiations.
Prince George Local went out on a 24-hour strike at 12:01 p.m. on Monday (Oct. 29). Roughly 130 workers are involved in the strikes here.
The three locations that were striking are the main delivery outlet at 3505 15th Ave., the downtown retail outlet at Fifth Avenue, and the main sorting plant located on Penn Road.
While workers are on strike, nothing is delivered and no trucks come in or out, which leaves customers without any services for those 24 hours.
"First of all, a strike is the last thing we want. We want to be working, providing the same great service for all our customers like always," Prince George Local 812 president Clark Rasmussen writes in an email to PrinceGeorgeMatters. "However, the corporation has not been negotiating in good faith, in our opinion, and we were forced to push back and get a fair deal."
He adds there are multiple issues the union wants to be addressed: overburdening of employees, adding more full-time positions, equality among employees, and adding more services that Canadians can use.
"We have workers across the country each day being forced into overtime and working up to 12 hours or more," Rasmussen says. "Our injuries on duty have gone up 36 per cent over the last year alone, and to add insult to injury, workers who are currently on short-term disability were cut off from their benefits by the corporation when our rotating strikes began. Our workers deserve to go to work and feel safe and not to go home broken."
CUPW strike actions start in several locations in Southwestern, Northern and Eastern Ontario, and in Weyburn SK. Strike continues in Montreal, Peterborough, Lloydminster, Prince George and areas of BC: https://t.co/bxq6HNAfDJ
— Canada Post (@canadapostcorp) October 30, 2018
He says currently, employees are not paid for some hours they work or their overtime. There's also a two-tier wage system where new employees who are hired on will have to wait seven years before they can make a wage compared to other employees.
"That is completely unacceptable," the Prince George president says.
They also want to make the postal service easier for Canadians including seeking new services for seniors and postal banking.
"We have also tabled more services that we can provide to all Canadians. One is postal banking; 2,000 towns across Canada have no banks, 160 countries around the world have this service, as we once did for almost 100 years until 1969, and the majority of the countries doing it are making profits from it, as well it creates jobs," Rasmussen explains. "We are seeking new services for seniors, and we are pushing the corporation to go green. It’s time to do our part, especially with the biggest fleet of vehicles in Canada."
Rotating strikes will be roughly 24 hours per city; some are longer. The union has chosen rotating strikes so customers are not majorly affected, but they hope to put pressure on the employer to take the negotiations seriously.
The union and Canada Post started negotiating over a year ago, and have been now been without a contract for 10 months.
