Canada Post workers officially on strike, says union

The 55,000 Canada Post workers represented by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) are on strike as of 12:01 a.m. EST (9:01 p.m. PST), the union says.

“After a year of bargaining with little progress, postal workers made the difficult decision to strike,” the CUPW said in a news release.

“Canada Post had the opportunity to prevent this strike, but it has refused to negotiate real solutions to the issues postal workers face every day. Instead, Canada Post left us no choice when it threatened to change our working conditions and leave our members exposed to layoffs.”

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers issued a 72-hour strike notice earlier in the week, saying it’s been asking for fair wages, safer working conditions and other improvements over nearly a year of bargaining.

Canada Post served the union with the lockout notice not long after but had said it didn’t intend to lock workers out.

The Crown corporation previously said that if there is labour action, it will do its best to minimize service disruptions, but delays may be unavoidable.

It also warned that a labour disruption would make its already serious financial situation worse, as a competitive parcel delivery market has increasingly challenged Canada Post in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With files from The Canadian Press.