Postal labour dispute turns ugly: Undelivered mail and possible legal action
By Contributor
First they were locked out. Then they were legislated back again. Now postal workers in some parts of the country are being handed a new delivery policy telling them they can’t deliver the mail even though they are back on the job.
In Montreal, Windsor, Hamilton, Scarborough and Kitchener, letter carriers reporting for duty were instructed to return all their undelivered mail to their originating office after eight hours of work.
Prior to the labour dispute, letter carriers would have been able to deliver mail to all the addresses on their route.
However, the 15-member national executive board of CUPW has decided to take the federal government to court over last week’s back-to-work legislation.
A CUPW spokesperson said said Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms contains the right to belong to a union and Canada’s labour code protects the right to collective bargaining.
And it’s on those grounds the union wants to file a legal challenge. The court case will target one of the main sticking points over the bill — the wage settlements.
The government legislated a wage increase of 1.57 per cent, which is lower than the 1.9 per cent that Canada Post had put on the table earlier this month in negotiations with its workers.
— with files from the CBC
