Canada Post says workers to return Tuesday after labour board ruling

Canada Post says operations will resume on Tuesday, Dec. 17 after the Canada Industrial Relations Board ordered a return to work.

Canada Post says it has agreed with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers to implement a five per cent wage increase retroactive to the day after the collective agreements expired.

Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon on Friday directed the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order the 55,000 picketing employees back to work if a deal wasn’t doable before the end of the year.

Canada Post says the board determined negotiations between the Crown corporation and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers are at an impasse after two days of hearings over the weekend.

WATCH | Ottawa ‘calling a timeout,’ MacKinnon says: 

MacKinnon says Ottawa’s ‘calling a timeout’ as he intervenes in 4-week-long postal strike

3 days ago

Duration 1:40

Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon announces he’s asking the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order operations at Canada Post to resume if it agrees that the contract dispute is at an impasse. MacKinnon also says he is tapping an independent commissioner to examine the structure of the corporation, along with the collective agreement, and produce recommendations ‘on the way forward.’

In the meantime, Canada Post says it has agreed with the union to implement a five per cent wage increase, retroactive to the day after the collective agreements expired.

The union did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the resumption of work.

It said on Friday that MacKinnon’s intervention was part of a troubling pattern in which the government lets employers off the hook for bargaining in good faith with workers and their unions.