Canada Post to meet with union Sunday amid national overtime ban by mail workers
Canada Post was set to meet with negotiators from its union Sunday amid warnings of mail delivery delays tied to a national ban on overtime for postal workers.
Sunday's meeting will be the first of the weekend, a spokesperson for the Crown corporation said.
A mediator will be on hand to work with the parties, which have been deadlocked for months in efforts to secure a new collective bargaining agreement.
Canada Post presented its latest offers to the union on Wednesday, which included a hike in pay and plans to roll out a fleet of part-time workers.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has yet to offer a formal response to the proposals, but its request for a two-week "truce" to consider the deal was rejected by the employer.
On Sunday, the union said its negotiators had "worked hard to carefully evaluate the offers and prepare responses" ahead of the meeting.
In an email, CUPW criticized Canada Post for rejecting its truce proposal, which it said left negotiators with only a few days to comb through the legal wording of the 700-page offer.
"If instability hangs over these negotiations, it's due to Canada Post's uncompromising stance and time management," the union wrote in a statement.
The most recent agreement between the parties, which was extended by the Canada Industrial Relations Board after Ottawa intervened in the month-long holiday-season strike late last year, expired Thursday.
While CUPW issued a 72-hour strike notice earlier in the week that could have seen workers walk off the job first thing Friday morning, the union instead issued a national ban on taking overtime work while it considered the latest deal.
The union said in a bulletin to members last week that Canada Post's most recent offers "fall short" on wages and other key sticking points in the negotiations.
Canada Post said the offers reflect its financial realities.
An Industrial Inquiry Commission set up by the federal government found the postal service was effectively "bankrupt" and recommended a series of structural changes in a report released earlier this month.
That included recommendations to phase out daily door-to-door delivery and implement a "dynamic routing" system that could see mail carriers' routes change on a daily basis.
cbc.ca
