A four-week long strike by Canada Post has come to an end after the Canada Industrial Relations Board intervened in the labour dispute between postal workers and management.
Canada Post’s mail sorters and letter carriers will return to work at 8 a.m. on Dec. 17 after the Canada Industrial Relations Board issued a return-to-work order that ends the strike.
The move comes after the federal government in Ottawa called on the labour board to step in and order 55,000 postal workers back to work after a month-long shutdown of the national postal system.
The board issued the return-to-work directive after determining that negotiations between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) are at an impasse.
The Canada Industrial Relations Board has also extended the union’s current contracts through May 2025 to allow additional time for the bargaining process to be completed.
In the meantime, Canada Post says it has agreed with the union to implement an immediate 5% wage increase for all workers.
Businesses had been calling on Ottawa to intervene in the postal strike as companies scramble to deliver parcels with the year-end holiday shopping season underway.
Canada Post and CUPW are at loggerheads over issues such as job security and pensions. The latest labour negotiations come as Canada Post has lost $3 billion since 2018.
