Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon is sending the labour dispute between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) to the Canada Industrial Relations Board.
MacKinnon said Friday that if the board determines negotiations between the parties are at an impasse, it has been directed to order striking CUPW members back to work under the existing collective agreement until May 22, 2025.
The labour minister said an industrial inquiry commission will be established to find out why negotiations between the parties have failed to deliver a resolution.
Why negotiate when all the media is about sob stories and leadership only has to wait for the back to work order and the workers to lose their power.
If they’re serious about getting what they want, they might have to ignore a back-to-work order, like CUPE did in Ontario last year. That said they might want to wait for this review and report to finish. They should probably also challenge the order like these guys did. Back-to-work feels okay politically when there’s compliance. The moment the government has to impose prohibitive fines or worse upon workers, the optics shift dramatically. All of a sudden people’s feelings change from “These folks don’t have it that bad, it’s okay to force them back to work.” to “The government will bankrupt these people if they refuse to work? That’s insane.” I think people’s support depends on how they perceive the union members conditions compared to theirs. When they are comparable, people feel it’s okay for union members to endure what they endure. If there’s a significant difference in a way that people wouldn’t want to endure themselves, tbey would not feel okay with union members enduring that. Ignoring back-to-work order would require such measures.
This practice definitely needs to be challeneged. Large companies handling national infrastructure simply refusing to reasonably negotiate until the government gets antsy, is not a fair or neutral process that respects worker’s constitutional rights.
My guess is that the big losers in all this will be people in remote places who rely on Canada Post. The legacy media will spin this as being the union’s fault when it’s really a failure to pay workers a liveable wage.
When the next Conservative government comes in, we’ll see further budget cuts to postal services, and eventually they’ll be dismantled because they’ll be hamstrung and next to useless.
Back to work orders need to be paired with firing the entire leadership for failing to negotiate if it’s a crown corp or government entity, or crippling fines if it’s a private company. The way things have been going there’s absolutely no incentive for an “essential service” employer to negotiate at all, let alone in good faith.
And in case there are any small time CEOs reading this, you could argue the status quo is unfair to any business that isn’t massive enough for the government to step in.
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Why negotiate when all the media is about sob stories and leadership only has to wait for the back to work order and the workers to lose their power.
If they’re serious about getting what they want, they might have to ignore a back-to-work order, like CUPE did in Ontario last year. That said they might want to wait for this review and report to finish. They should probably also challenge the order like these guys did. Back-to-work feels okay politically when there’s compliance. The moment the government has to impose prohibitive fines or worse upon workers, the optics shift dramatically. All of a sudden people’s feelings change from “These folks don’t have it that bad, it’s okay to force them back to work.” to “The government will bankrupt these people if they refuse to work? That’s insane.” I think people’s support depends on how they perceive the union members conditions compared to theirs. When they are comparable, people feel it’s okay for union members to endure what they endure. If there’s a significant difference in a way that people wouldn’t want to endure themselves, tbey would not feel okay with union members enduring that. Ignoring back-to-work order would require such measures.
This practice definitely needs to be challeneged. Large companies handling national infrastructure simply refusing to reasonably negotiate until the government gets antsy, is not a fair or neutral process that respects worker’s constitutional rights.
My guess is that the big losers in all this will be people in remote places who rely on Canada Post. The legacy media will spin this as being the union’s fault when it’s really a failure to pay workers a liveable wage.
When the next Conservative government comes in, we’ll see further budget cuts to postal services, and eventually they’ll be dismantled because they’ll be hamstrung and next to useless.
Back to work orders need to be paired with firing the entire leadership for failing to negotiate if it’s a crown corp or government entity, or crippling fines if it’s a private company. The way things have been going there’s absolutely no incentive for an “essential service” employer to negotiate at all, let alone in good faith.
And in case there are any small time CEOs reading this, you could argue the status quo is unfair to any business that isn’t massive enough for the government to step in.
I’m okay with that, at least it’s a lose-lose situation.
Biden ordered rail workers back to work but some basic concessions…
Still an L in my book. Labor has no power.