Canada Post confirms laying off striking postal workers. It’s a ‘scare tactic’, union says

Canada Post has confirmed that it is laying off striking postal workers following a union complaint that workers were getting layoff phone calls as a “scare tactic.”

 

In a statement to the Star, Canada Post said the layoffs are temporary.

 

“Our business has been significantly impacted leading up to and throughout this labour disruption. We have taken steps to adjust our operations,” Canada Post said. “That means the previously expired collective agreements no longer apply and the terms and conditions of employment for employees have therefore changed.”

 

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) posted in a bulletin Monday that Canada Post had been “calling CUPW members to lay them off.”

 

Carl Girourard, the union’s national grievance officer, wrote that the calls “are merely a scare tactic” and that workers should not “panic if (they) receive such a call.”

 

Canada Post said that “a limited number of employees” have been impacted by the layoffs and that employees who “have been laid off have been contacted directly.”

CUPW confirmed in a statement to the Star that Canada Post had begun laying off its members, but did not specify the number of workers laid off.

 

Earlier in November, Canada Post issued a lockout notice but said it didn’t intend to lock out employees, instead saying the notice would allow the company to make changes to its operations in order to respond to the effects of a strike.

 

Larry Savage, a professor of labour studies at Brock University, said layoffs are “a very aggressive move by Canada Post that seem designed to scare union members into abandoning their strike.”

 

“I think as we inch closer to the holiday season,” Savage said, “government intervention becomes more and more likely.”

 

On Wednesday, federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said that the special federal mediator was suspending mediated talks between the two parties after Canada Post said talks had “ground to a halt.”

 

“This pause in mediation activities will hopefully permit the parties to reassess their positions and return to the bargaining table with renewed resolve,” MacKinnon wrote on the social media platform X.

 

On Thursday, MacKinnon wrote that he spoke with striking CUPW workers in Vancouver to “hear about what is important to them in this dispute.”

 

Daniel Tisch, the president and CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, called the strike “an economic risk to Canada” in a statement Wednesday.

“Instead of thriving during the holidays, businesses face delays, damaged reputations, and lost sales,” Tisch wrote.

 

Striking workers have a legal right to return to their jobs when the strike ends, said David J. Doorey, a professor of labour and employment law at York University, “unless those jobs no longer exist.

 

“It may be that a lack of work at that point results in some employees being laid-off, at least temporarily, but that is just hypothetical at this point.”

 

A key issue in bargaining has been a push to expand parcel deliveries into the weekend, but the union and Canada Post are at odds over how to make it work.

 

Canada Post has been struggling to compete with other delivery providers and posted a $315 million loss before tax in its third quarter, and has pitched weekend deliveries as a way to boost revenue.

 

On Thursday, CUPW members rallied outside Canada Post’s corporate headquarters in Ottawa.

 

With files from The Canadian Press.

 

 

 

 

 

This article was first reported by The Star