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The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) has announced Canada Post workers could go on strike as early as Monday, October 22, if agreements can’t be reached with the Urban Postal Operations and Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers bargaining units over job security, forced overtime, and health and safety measures.
If postal workers start rotating strikes at 12:01am Monday morning, mail service may be interrupted indefinitely, which could have a detrimental impact on Canada’s insurance broker force.
The Centre for Study of Insurance Operations (CSIO) has released a statement saying: “brokers need to immediately prepare their office and staff to minimize disruption and inconvenience to customers.”
The scale of the action is likely to depend on how talks progress over the forthcoming days with union president Mike Palacek stressing they wish to avoid inconvenience wherever possible.
“Our aim is not to disrupt the public, it’s not to disrupt the service that we provide, that we’ve been defending for years, so we’re trying to come up with ways to put some pressure on Canada Post without impacting the public,” he said, as quoted by the Canadian Press.
Strike notices have been issued after talks stalled with the sides reportedly far apart.
“We’ve said we would remain at the table as long as progress is being made, and we’ve reached a point where we’re not seeing a lot of progress,” Palacek added.
It is hoped that the threat of job action will push the Crown corporation to take the matters seriously.
