Yellowknife (July 18/03) - Mail service may grind to a halt this weekend if postal workers and Canada Post cannot reach an agreement.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) set a strike deadline for Friday at 12:01 am in labour negotiations with Canada Post.

About 48,000 workers will walk off the job and join the picket line unless several key issues are settled.

After seven months of negotiations, contentious issues such as letter carrier workload, injury rates, benefit cutbacks, severance pay removal, wages and cost of living allowance are still unresolved. Lynda LeFrancois, president for CUPW Yellowknife, had no comment while negotiations were ongoing.

CUPW says on their Web site that "instead of considering our proposals for innovative changes, Canada Post is proposing significant rollbacks."

President and CEO of Canada Post, Andre Ouellet, maintains that "the union has to realize we can no longer sustain the costs associated with the current collective agreement." The last Canada Post strike lasted for two weeks in 1997, and ended when the federal government introduced legislation to force a settlement.