Canada Post rotating strikes affect service in Winnipeg, Brandon

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This article was published 29/10/2018 (2681 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mail service ground to a halt Sunday night in Winnipeg as Canada Post’s rotating strikes spread to the Prairies with 1,500 local postal carriers walking off the job.

The picket line formed outside the Canada Post depot on Wellington Avenue at 10 p.m., hours after the Canadian Union of Postal Workers local 856 got word from the national office that its number had been called in the ongoing strike effort.

One main union concern being raised in the dispute is how technological changes — particularly the advent of online shopping — have resulted in increased workloads for overburdened postal carriers.

Those same technological changes, however, could undermine the union’s bargaining efforts, according to labour relations expert Alan Levy, who said Canadians might well respond with a collective shrug of the shoulders to disruptions in snail mail.

“In years past a postal strike was a big deal. But these days people can still communicate through email. Most people are either on email or some sort of social media. It doesn’t mean you stop communicating with other individuals like it did in the past,” said Levy, an associate professor of business as Brandon University.

The 1,500 workers on strike in Winnipeg are joined by their Brandon colleagues, who established picket lines first thing Monday morning. The rotating strikes began last week in an effort to pressure management at the bargaining table. It remains unclear how long the strikes in Winnipeg and Brandon are expected to last.

Strikes are also underway in Ontario (Pickering, Oshawa, Thunder Bay and Niagara Falls) and in iles-de-la-Madeleine, Que.

Levy credits the CUPW as responsible for rotating strikes to limit service disruptions, but added there could also be a less benevolent reason that strategy has been deployed. If the union pulls workers nationally and Canadians don’t care or take notice, it will undermine collective bargaining efforts, Levy said.

“If they all strike at one time and the impact isn’t that great, then they would be really stuck,” he said.

The local has six picket lines in Winnipeg, but the main effort is focused on ensuring no mail leaves the Canada Post depot on Wellington Avenue, which serves as a main hub.

On Monday morning, carrying a large placard reading “Negotiate Now” on the picket line outside the depot, Lisa Peterson, CUPW local 856 president, said the Crown corporation hasn’t seriously engaged with the union’s major demands.

Nonetheless, she said local management has respected the picket so far. “They’re not trying to sneak mail in. They’re not bringing in scab workers,” Peterson said.

The first strikes began in the Greater Toronto Area last week when nearly 9,000 CUPW members left work for two days, creating postal disruptions for tens of thousands of Canadians. A special mediator, Morton Mitchnick, has been appointed to resolve the labour dispute. Peterson said the union is adamant that Canada Post needs to address, among other concerns, serious health and safety issues, as well as change the way rural postal carriers are paid.

Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton, meanwhile, counters that there is an offer on the table guaranteeing wage increases, job security and benefit improvements, with no rollbacks.

Levy said he suspects businesses that rely on Canada Post will feel the pinch due to the strike, even if many Canadians don’t care.

“If your business truly relies on the post office, then this will be an issue. Although the average Canadian might say, ‘I’m not going to cry or crow about the fact that I’m not getting my bills,” Levy said.

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @rk_thorpe