Morning Update: Inside the Canada Post labour dispute

Good morning. The Canada Post strike over wages and working conditions drags on – more on that below, along with Nova Scotia’s low-key election and the fastest event in Canadian rodeo. But first:

Today’s headlines

• Putin signs a new nuclear doctrine after Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia with U.S. long-range weapons
• MPs unanimously condemn Iran’s alleged plot to kill former justice minister Irwin Cotler
• The security of Canadian water treatment plants is called into question as cyberattack threats mount

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Canada Post

Who’s got mail

We’ve now entered the fifth day of the work stoppage at Canada Post, after more than 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers walked off the job on Friday, shutting down mail service across the country. Yesterday, CUPW and Canada Post sat down with a government-appointed special mediator to try to bring an end to the strike – no one seems to want this to go to binding arbitration – but the consensus among spokespeople is that both sides remain far apart on the issues.

Those issues include benefits, sick leave, job conditions and security, but the two biggies come down to wages and weekends. CUPW would like a compounded wage increase of 24 per cent over four years; Canada Post has proposed an 11.5-per-cent increase. And while Canada Post wants to hire contract workers so it can begin delivering parcels on weekends, CUPW says existing full-time employees should make the deliveries (with overtime) instead. “We do not want them to gig-ify the post office,” Jan Simpson, national president of CUPW, told The Globe.

Until a resolution is reached, Canada Post and CUPW have agreed to keep delivering government cheques such as pensions, unemployment insurance and child-care benefits, but that’s about it. Mail and magazines, bank cards and statements, e-commerce orders, new passports, in-transit packages, letters to Santa – they all stop. (Santa, if you’re reading this, I would love some new mixing bowls.) The last CUPW labour disruption, which kicked off in October, 2018, involved more than a month of rotating strikes before the federal government introduced back-to-work legislation. It also cost Canada Post roughly $135-million.

That’s money the corporation can ill afford right now. Canada Post says it has lost $3-billion since 2016, with nearly $500-million in losses in the first six months of 2024 alone. And the future looks just as bleak: According to its 2023 annual report, released in May, Canada Post will run out of cash early next year unless it borrows another $1-billion and refinances $500-million in existing debt. “Canada Post is at a critical juncture in its history,” the report said bluntly.

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The problem, mainly, is that letters used to be the corporation’s major source of income, but people and businesses rarely send them anymore – Canada Post calls this the Great Mail Decline, and the capital letters are theirs. In 2006, Canadian households received an average of seven letters each week; last year’s average was two. It’s not an ideal business model. “A system built to deliver 5.5 billion letters a year cannot be sustained on two billion letters,” the annual report lamented.

To make matters worse, speedier rivals like Amazon, FedEx and UPS have claimed a huge chunk of the parcel-delivery market. Right before the pandemic hit, Canada Post delivered 62 per cent of all packages in this country. Currently, it’s more like 29 per cent. Last mention of that 2023 annual report, I promise, but in it, the post office said those rivals offered “faster, cheaper and more convenient services” owing in part to a reliance on “low-cost, contracted labour” delivering up to seven days a week. Canada Post wasn’t in a position to beat the competition – so now it plans to join them.

“We have seen this happen in many workplaces: the greater use of part-timers as a means for the corporation to cut costs,” Stephanie Ross, an associate professor of labour studies at McMaster University, told The Globe. “Canada Post’s position appears to be that it cannot compete unless it follows the Amazon model of hiring workers for cheap and contracting out delivery. The union is trying to prevent that race to the bottom.” It’s unclear still whether CUPW’s efforts will be successful, or where Canada Post will find the money to pay its current employees overtime for weekend deliveries – not to mention how it will remedy a financial situation the post office itself calls “unsustainable.” (Okay, that’s the last mention of the annual report.) Let’s hope someone has some big ideas at the bargaining table.

The Shot

Not her first rodeo

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One of the very few competitions for cowgirls, breakaway roping is now the fastest-growing – and straight-up fastest – event in rodeo. (Seriously: These cowgirls can lasso a calf from astride a horse in 1.5 seconds flat.) Read more about the new place for women in Canadian rodeo here.

The Wrap

What else we’re following

At home: Making good on its August promise, the Ontario government has tabled legislation that would force nearly half of the province’s supervised consumption sites to close.

Abroad: Armed looters hijacked 98 of the 109 trucks carrying urgently needed aid into Gaza, where UN workers warn severe food shortages are set to worsen.

Poll position: Despite a serious backlash against incumbents pretty much everywhere else, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Houston looks set to stay on as premier in Nova Scotia’s low-key election later this month.

Art! Anne Michaels claimed Canada’s richest award for fiction last night, winning the Giller Prize for her novel Held.

Art? You may remember the yellow banana – stuck to a white wall with silver duct tape – that caused a kerfuffle at Art Basel Miami five years ago. Well, now it (or, more accurately, a replacement banana) could sell for US$1-million at a Sotheby’s auction tomorrow.