After 15 days, Canada Post’s largest union CUPW has announced that it will switch to rotating strikes, beginning Saturday morning, which will get the mail moving again throughout Canada.
More than 55,000 postal workers walked off the job on Sept. 25, following an announcement by federal Public Works and Procurement Minister Joel Lightbound that the crown corporation would be permitted to make a massive overhaul to its door-to-door delivery and local post office model.
“Postal workers would much rather have new collective agreements and be delivering mail instead of taking strike action,” said CUPW president Jan Simpson in a statement.
What does that mean for us?
While not fully confirmed by Canada Post, it is expected that post offices will begin accepting mail again once the rotating strike model puts CUPW employees back on the job. As a result, Community Press staff expect to mail out any bills that weren’t already emailed, will begin receiving payments again by mail, and are hopeful to be able to mail out the October 15 edition to subscribers. Caribou Publishing’s four newspapers had to scramble to implement alternate distribution strategies over the past two weeks.
“We thank CUPW for adding some sanity to this situation,” said Community Press publisher Eric Anderson.
“There’s no easy solution to this dispute, but holding customers hostage was never the answer. We as Canadians need our mail service to work for us, and regular customers should not be punished for sticking with an institution that clearly needs fixing.”
