Canada Post has laid out its "final offers" to the union representing 55,000 workers after negotiations resumed Wednesday morning, as tensions run high over the future of the beleaguered institution.
Included in the proposal are an end to compulsory overtime, a signing bonus of $1,000 for urban employees and $500 for rural and suburban ones, and cost-of-living payments that are triggered at a lower inflation threshold.
Management's earlier offer of a nearly 14 per cent cumulative wage hike over four years remains unchanged, as does a plan to hire part-time staff for weekend delivery — a major sticking point in the talks.
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Canada Post also aims to launch "dynamic routing" at 10 processing facilities initially, which could see mail carriers' routes change daily in response to parcel volume.
In a news release, the Crown corporation quoted a federally commissioned report released earlier this month that recommended dynamic routes and part-time weekend positions with similar pay rates, benefits and pension plans to full-time positions.
"Canada Post is facing an existential crisis: It is effectively insolvent, or bankrupt," commissioner William Kaplan wrote in the May 15 report.
"The world has changed, and both Canada Post and CUPW (Canadian Union of Postal Workers) must evolve and adapt. Merely tinkering with the status quo is not an option."
The union had been in a strike position starting Friday last week but opted instead for an overtime ban.
After the month-long strike last fall that was part of these same contract negotiations, Canada Post said ongoing uncertainty has pushed down parcel volumes by 65 per cent from the same time last year.
The organization faces big questions about its business model and its future as letter volumes plunge, with losses topping $4 billion since 2018 and a $1 billion federal loan in January keeping it afloat.
Lorraine Muller, who worked at Canada Post as a letter carrier until last fall when she turned to sorting mail at a facility in Montreal, says workers have been getting a "bad deal" and that structural reform is needed. But a solution to postal woes is hard to come by.
"That's the toughest question," she said in an interview on Wednesday. "What do you do? I don't know."
Muller pointed to previous suggestions of expanding into banking — like the postal service in France and the Czech Republic — given the flight of bank branches from small towns.
"Many of us have a deep, deep sense of public service and public good, so let us do our jobs. We're not robots yet," she said.
“But stop driving away customers.”
Shippers fled Canada Post in droves when workers walked off the job on Nov. 15. Many customers returned after a ministerial directive prompted employees to go back to work on Dec. 17. But rather than be caught flat-footed a second-time, plenty of e-commerce companies have played it safe this month by booking with other couriers.
Customer service agents struggling to handle the surge in business last autumn "were just overwhelmed," said Timothy Byrnes, who owns parcel delivery firm Jet Worldwide. His company was better prepared for the flood of shipments this time around, he said.
Meanwhile, employees may sense a threat of layoffs with Canada Post's proposal for part-time jobs in particular.
"Moving more parcel delivery to the weekends and having that be done by part-time workers poses a potential threat to the volume of work that is allocated to full-time workers during the week," said Stephanie Ross, associate professor in the School of Labour Studies at McMaster University.
"Is there a path to moving into full-time or to converting those positions into full-time work?"
Ross also highlighted potential points of tension among workers.
"There are some people in the union who would see the ability to have permanent part-time work at the same wage rate and with access to pensions and benefits as a big improvement over doing temporary work — because there is temp work already going on at the post office," she said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2025.
