Postal workers protest back-to-work order in Moncton [video]

Striking postal workers held a protest at the Moncton office of Liberal MP Ginette Petitpas Taylor on Monday, after the federal labour relations board issued a back-to-work order.

Canada Post said it would resume operations on Tuesday following the ruling from the Canada Industrial Relations Board. Last week, federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon asked the CIRB to issue the ruling if it found that the Crown corporation and the union remained at an impasse.

Line Doucet, president of the Moncton local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, said she spoke to Petitpas Taylor — who is Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages — while travelling between Ottawa and Moncton.

“I was waiting for my plane and she got off the plane, so in the airport I had to keep my tone down, but I got to talk to her last night and I told her my disappointment and she knows my disappointment,” Doucet said.

“But we also want her to hear from the rest of the employees here how disappointed they are, because it needs to be said.” 

Dawn Ritzhaupt, a longtime postal worker, said the federal government should stay out of the dispute and allow the union to negotiate with Canada Post. 

“I’m fighting for our constitutional right to get a contract negotiated,” she said. 

Ministerial press secretary Wyatt Westover declined to comment on the situation, and referred questions about the back-to-work order to MacKinnon. In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, the Labour Minister said that an industrial commission of inquiry would look into the “structural issues of the conflict” and would issue a report on May 15. 

Roughly 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have been on strike since Nov. 15 over issues including wages, workplace health and safety, and a two-tiered pension scheme. Canada Post said in a statement that workers’ expired contracts would be extended until May 22 with a five per cent pay increase.

In a statement on Monday, CUPW noted that the five per cent increase was part of the latest offer from Canada Post for the first year of the collective agreements.

“This wage increase is a ‘baseline’ wage increase, and the Union will still be in a position to negotiate an additional percentage wage increase for that same year during the period leading to May 22, 2025,” CUPW said.

The statement also noted plans to “challenge the constitutionality and the current application of section 107 by the Minister of Labour,” a reference to the provision in the Canada Labour Code giving the Minister power to settle industrial disputes through the CIRB.

By late morning on Monday, striking workers also remained at the picket line in Dieppe, the site of a major regional Canada Post sorting facility. Temporary structures to protect picketing workers from the elements and block access to the facility remained in place at that time. By Tuesday morning, picket lines were down and the temporary structures had been removed.

Last update: 12: 15 p.m., Dec. 17, 2024. 

David Gordon Koch is a journalist with the NB Media Co-op. This reporting has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada, administered by the Canadian Association of Community Television Stations and Users (CACTUS).