Canada Post says workers to return Tuesday after labour board ruling

By The Canadian Press on December 15, 2024.

Canada Post vehicles sit covered in snow at a distribution facility after a strike that has lasted more than four weeks, in Ottawa on December 13, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle

Canada Post says operations will resume on Tuesday, Dec. 17 after the Canada Industrial Relations Board ordered a return to work.

Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon on Friday directed the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order the 55,000 picketing employees back to work if a deal wasn’t doable before the end of the year.

Canada Post says the board determined negotiations between the Crown corporation and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers are at an impasse after two days of hearings over the weekend.

In the meantime, Canada Post says it has agreed with the union to implement a five per cent wage increase, retroactive to the day after the collective agreements expired.

The union did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the resumption of work.

It said on Friday that MacKinnon’s intervention was part of a troubling pattern in which the government lets employers off the hook for bargaining in good faith with workers and their unions.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 15, 2024.