With less than a week to go before Canada Post's conciliation process ends with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, those workers could be locked out, or on strike, by early July.
Phil Marsh, second vice-president with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 612, which represents postal workers in the Sudbury region, said both sides remain at a standstill with a July 2 deadline for a new contract.
“Nothing has changed in the offers,” Marsh told Sudbury.com. “We've been without a work contract since the beginning of the year.”
Marsh said one of the big issues on the table is for Canada Post's rural mail carriers to receive equal pay to their colleagues in urban settings, who do almost the same work.
The rural carriers, said Marsh, are paid 30-per-cent less, on average, than their colleagues in cities.
“Those workers are predominantly women, and they're paid less than letter carriers who are predominantly men,” he said. “In this time of prosperity for the corporation, which has made over $2 billion in the last 19 years, we deserve better.”
In 2015, Canada Post reported a profit before tax of $63 million.
The Crown corporation credited the profitable year to more parcel deliveries — where revenue has grown by $429 million since 2011 — and a price increase in 2014, along with improved productivity.
But Canada Post said in a press release last year its $63 million in profits was modest compared to the corporation's revenues, and added it faces significant challenges, including a continuing decline in mail volumes.
To mitigate the impact of declining letter mail volume Canada Post started to move Canada's five million households that still received door-to-door mail delivery to community mailboxes in 2013.
By late 2015 Canada Post had switched around 850,000 addresses to community mailboxes; a change the Crown corporation said would save $80 million annually.
The union has fought that move on the grounds of declining service levels and the impact community mailboxes have on the elderly and people with physical handicaps, who can have difficulty leaving their homes to collect their mail.
Marsh said 30 municipalities were impacted by the move away from door-to-door delivery before the federal Liberals halted the change, pending a public review of Canada Post.
Marsh said a strike remains a last option for the union. “We do not want to be on strike,” he said. “We would like to continue doing our jobs and serving the public.”
