Canada Post reaches tentative agreement
Deal with union addresses pay equity, pensions
Jessica Davey-Quantick
Northern News Services
Friday, September 2, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Canada Post reached a tentative agreement with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers CUPW) on Tuesday, narrowly avoiding a work stoppage.
But this new agreement is only for two years, instead of the usual four, meaning both parties will be back at the bargaining table almost before the ink is dry.
Gord Fischer, National Director at CUPW Prairie Region, which includes the Northwest Territories, said he expects the deal to be ratified and formally signed by the beginning of November, with changes becoming apparent after the current collective agreement expires on Dec. 31, 2017.
"We're reasonably happy," said Fischer. "We would have liked to have gotten other issues addressed in collective bargaining but we feel that we were fairly successful."
The 10-month long negotiation came to a close earlier this week, after the Employment, Workforce Development and Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk appointed a mediation team to move things along.
"I am pleased that Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) have successfully reached new tentative agreements. This means that Canadian families and businesses can continue to rely on the postal service to be there for them when they need it," Mihychuk stated in a news release on Tuesday.
There was cause for concern: the mediation team delayed two proposed job actions that would have seen postal workers refusing to work overtime on Monday in Alberta and the Northwest Territories, and again on Tuesday, this time in the Yukon and British Columbia.
"It's always been our intent to get a collective agreement hopefully without any strike or any disruption to postal service," said Fischer. "The last thing we want to do is basically deprive Canadian people of a postal service for any period of time."
The tentative agreement addresses many issues, including a defined benefit pension plan for all current and future plan participants, extensions to health and disability benefits, as well as wage increases. Urban letter carriers will receive a one-per-cent wage increase effective Feb. 1, 2016 and a 1.5 per cent increase effective Feb. 1, 2017, plus additional adjustments for specific groups.
But of more concern for Fischer are changes to how rural and suburban mail carriers, who make up the bulk of carriers in Yellowknife and the surrounding communities, are compensated. They too will receive wage increases of 1.5 per cent on Jan. 1, 2017, and again on Jan. 1, 2018. This pay increase, Fischer says, is a step towards pay equity.
"Basically, they get paid significantly less than other letter carriers do for doing exactly the same job," he said. He estimates that before the new agreement, rural and suburban carriers were making about 28 per cent less than their urban counterparts.
"I'd still say that it's probably still in the 20s in terms of discrepancy between the wages," he said, of the wage discrepancy percentage in the new agreement.
He said this isn't simply a pay equity issue, but a gender issue: CUPW estimates about 70 per cent of rural and suburban mail carriers are female, which qualifies as a female dominated work place under the federal Equal Wage Guidelines. The exact number of female carriers in rural and suburban areas was unavailable at press time, and Canada Post couldn't be reached for comment.
"So there is a gender issue there and that's why there's a pay equity issue," said Fischer.
He said the discrepancy has also been affected by the fact that, while urban carriers have belonged to unions for around 60 years, rural and suburban mail carriers only got the right to organize in 2004.
"I think in 2016 you know we've waited long enough. We've always believed in pay equity, we've fought for it before with Canada Post," said Fischer.
"This should be no surprise to Canada Post or the government, they've known our position, it's been the same position for over 40 years."
It's an issue that could be examined again on Jan. 31, 2018, when the new, two-year agreement expires.
Canada Post stated in a news release on their website on Tuesday the reasons behind the shorter agreement period were declining mail volumes as well as a growing pension obligation.
"This approach provides more time for thoughtful discussion and analysis on how to best address these issues without the ongoing threat of a work disruption," Canada Post stated in a news release on Tuesday.
But Fischer says it's not that people aren't using the postal service - it's just that they're using it differently. He said packages and parcels in some post offices have nearly doubled and tripled in number in recent years.
"It's changing what it looks like in a post office, the type of mail that you'll see, but it's very relevant," he said.
That's particularly important for the North, where delays or stoppages in mail service would impact people shipping items in, as well as businesses across the country who increasingly rely on Canada Post. The new agreement still needs to be ratified by members before it can come into effect.
"You know you're never too happy with an agreement," said Fischer. "There's obviously other battles to be fought, but I think in this context we're reasonably satisfied that we protected what we needed to protect and achieved what we needed to achieve."
