By late this week, rural postal service should be back to normal across the country after more than two weeks of disruption, says a representative of rural postmasters.
Postal service started Dec. 5 after the federal government legislated an end to a 15-day strike by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.
Leroy Kuan, president of the Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association, said in a Dec. 8 interview it would take a few days for the mail to start flowing from urban sorting stations to rural post offices.
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“I would guess by the middle of this week things will be back to normal and in fact, for the next two weeks I would expect they will be busier than normal,” he said.
The postal strike closed down the national mail system, drove many mail-dependent small business to the brink of closure, cost business more than $3 billion, hurt charity fund-raising, disrupted distribution of The Western Producer and brought calls from some Canadian business representatives for either the privatization of Canada Post or the end of its first class mail monopoly.
CUPW leaders speculated the government was setting the stage for a sell-off of the crown corporation.
Public works minister Alfonso Gagliano, responsible for Canada Post, denied the charge, accusing CUPW leaders of mischief.
“I said it, I repeated it in all languages and I say it again: Canada Post is not for sale, not today, not tomorrow and not in any foreseeable future,” he said Dec. 2 during House of Commons debate on back-to-work legislation.
“In a country such as Canada, whose land mass is so great and population so widely dispersed, no private system will ever be able to provide a universal service for a reasonable price.”
In the end, negotiations broke down over post office demands that it have the flexibility to cut several hundred million dollars from its costs, including up to 4,000 jobs, and the union demand that salaries increase eight percent in less than two years.
The Liberals, facing strong pressure to end the strike from business lobbyists, Reform and Progressive Conservative MPs, waited for more than a week to decide to act. The legislation was rushed through Parliament in two days.
Liberal speakers such as labor minister Lawrence MacAulay recognized there would be criticism from business for waiting too long and from labor for intervening. “But I believe strongly that our actions in this dispute reflect the will of the majority of Canadians.”
Opposition MPs, even those who supported the legislation, called it too one-sided in favor of the post office.
It sends many of the issues to an arbitrator, but makes clear any settlement must allow Canada Post the flexibility to cut costs. It also imposed a three-year contract with wage increases of 1.5 percent, 1.75 percent and 1.9 percent. This was less than Canada Post had offered.
Reform spokesperson Jim Gouk supported the end of the strike but argued the legislation is so unbalanced “the tension that exists between Canada Post management and its employees will only get worse, if indeed that is possible.”
As they went back to work, CUPW leaders pledge to continue the fight, suggesting postal workers could let mail through the system even if it is not properly stamped.
