First off is the Union statement
CUPW Issues 72-Hour Strike Notice: A Call for Fair Negotiation
Tuesday May 20 2025
2023-2027/251
No. 83 - AMENDED
On Monday, May 19, CUPW issued a 72-hour strike notice to Canada Post. This action was not taken lightly, but it was done for several reasons.
The collective agreements for the Urban Postal Operations and the Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers bargaining units, which were extended by the Government in December 2024, are set to expire Friday, May 23 at midnight.
CUPW negotiators met with Canada Post over several days at the end of April and early May, with the goal of resolving our bargaining dispute and achieving new collective agreements for both bargaining units.
Last week, Canada Post walked away from the bargaining table for the third time, telling the Union it would return with new comprehensive offers. A week has passed. With the expiry of our collective agreements drawing closer by the day, we are still waiting. The clock is ticking, and so far, Canada Post has yet to deliver.
The day after Canada Post walked away and paused bargaining, it fired another shot, by threatening to unilaterally change your working conditions and suspend employee benefits if new agreements aren’t reached. This aggressive move undermines good faith bargaining and the stability of our public postal service. It had to be met with strong resistance. Postal workers won’t be threatened or coerced into accepting offers that will gut our collective agreements and undermine good, stable jobs.
Our right to strike was taken away from us and put on “a time out” by former Minister of Labour Steven MacKinnon’s orders and the Canada Industrial Relations Board in December 2024. By issuing this notice, we are simply announcing our intention to continue our legal strike that was put on pause by the CIRB.
The Work Continues
Although we have served notices, there is still time for negotiations to take place. We remain committed to achieving negotiated collective agreements. Your National Executive Board and Negotiating Committees urge Canada Post to return to the bargaining table with real offers that protect the health and well-being of postal workers, support the communities we serve, and ensure a strong and sustainable public postal service for all.
In solidarity,
Jan Simpson
National President
I found this on facebook and it is how I feel. Not mine but explains my feeling too.
Copied-> Canada Post is on strike again. Because, you know, delivering mail in 2025 is apparently one of the most grueling, soul-crushing jobs in the country. I mean, forget nurses doing 12-hour shifts without breaks, or oilfield workers busting their backs in -30°C weather no no, let’s all take a moment of silence for the true unsung heroes: the folks who scan Amazon boxes and shove them in community mailboxes.
What an absolute slap in the face to people who actually have hard, physically and mentally demanding jobs. Like are we really supposed to pretend this is some working-class uprising? Give me a break. Half the country is barely hanging on, and Canada Post is out here acting like they’re building the pyramids one envelope at a time.
The best part? They’ll complain about being overworked and underpaid while holding our packages hostage like they’re performing some noble public service. Spoiler alert: they’re not. They're a government-backed shipping service that’s become slower than dial-up internet and about as reliable as a wet paper bag.
So sure, let’s all rally behind the mail strike while people with actual hard jobs — the ones that keep people alive, safe, or fed — keep grinding without the luxury of walking off the job every time their feelings get hurt.
Sincerely,
One **bleep** off lady 
Government Intervention Has Destroyed Bargaining
Monday October 6 2025
2023-2027/339
No. 148
Postal workers aren’t just fighting for fair agreements. We’re also fighting a political battle against successive anti-labour governments that have shown zero respect for workers’ Charter-protected rights to free and fair collective bargaining.
Repeated government interventions in our dispute have completely ruined this round of negotiations. Every time the Government has stepped in, it has only made reaching new collective agreements that much harder. With every intervention, the Government has pushed the parties farther apart.
This is the case yet again with Canada Post’s October 3 offers. When Minister Lightbound made his announcement to gut our public post office on September 25, the Government gave Canada Post permission to make even worse offers than the ones postal workers had just decisively rejected in forced votes in July and August.
Steps Backward...
Instead of offering improvements from its May 28 positions, Canada Post’s offers:
- Give management the “sole discretion” to choose whether mail will go out on uncovered routes or when OT is needed.
- Give management the power to close as many of the 493 retail counters staffed by CUPW members as it wants.
- Suspend Urban job security protections (Article 53) in cases when Canada Post is implementing the measures announced September 25. While Canada Post says it wants to take care of job losses through “attrition,” the Urban offer gives management alone the discretion to choose how many “departure incentives” it will offer before laying employees off.
Apart from these new rollbacks, the Corporation’s offers remain, for all intents and purposes, the same as the ones it gave to us on May 28.
Bargaining should move the parties closer together. The cuts announced by the Government are what Canada Post wanted to see – they were the Corporation’s own positions as presented to the Industrial Inquiry Commission. Now we see those cuts reflected in Canada Post’s latest offers. We are in a downward spiral of Government intervention at Canada Post’s request and an increasing distance between the parties at the table.
The Government should be doing the bidding of the public, not the Corporation. Rather than gutting the post office, the Government should hold a fully public review of Canada Post’s mandate, like it said it would.
In solidarity,
Jan Simpson
National President
Meeting with Minister Lightbound Planned for Wednesday
Tuesday October 7 2025
2023-2027/340
No. 149
Members of CUPW’s National Executive Board and Negotiating Committees will meet with Joël Lightbound, the Minister responsible for Canada Post, this Wednesday evening (October 8).
This will be our first in person meeting with the Minister in charge of Canada Post. It is far too late in the process for this to happen, but that has been the Minister’s call. Now that we are all on the street he has asked to talk to us.
The meeting will focus on the Union’s response to the Minister’s September 25 announcement as well as the Employer’s latest contract offers.
While we want the meeting with the Minister, there’s no secret about our position: the Government’s decision to announce its plans to gut the public post office and slash thousands of good jobs is the wrong approach and will make everything worse for Canadians, the public service, and bargaining. The announcement was made just a day before Canada Post was supposed to present new global offers – not an effective way to advance negotiations or find labour peace. We will demand the Minister publicly rescind the changes he announced on September 25.
We will be raising the problems of keeping a CEO and Board that has mismanaged Canada Post for years and the conflict of interest that Purolator brings to the table and the movement of our work, including struck work, to other employees under the Canada Post umbrella.
In the meantime, our nation-wide strike action continues.
The struggle continues.
In solidarity,
Rona Eckert
1st National Vice-President
@musicyouneed wrote:I found this on facebook and it is how I feel. Not mine but explains my feeling too.
Copied-> Canada Post is on strike again. Because, you know, delivering mail in 2025 is apparently one of the most grueling, soul-crushing jobs in the country. I mean, forget nurses doing 12-hour shifts without breaks, or oilfield workers busting their backs in -30°C weather no no, let’s all take a moment of silence for the true unsung heroes: the folks who scan Amazon boxes and shove them in community mailboxes.What an absolute slap in the face to people who actually have hard, physically and mentally demanding jobs. Like are we really supposed to pretend this is some working-class uprising? Give me a break. Half the country is barely hanging on, and Canada Post is out here acting like they’re building the pyramids one envelope at a time.The best part? They’ll complain about being overworked and underpaid while holding our packages hostage like they’re performing some noble public service. Spoiler alert: they’re not. They're a government-backed shipping service that’s become slower than dial-up internet and about as reliable as a wet paper bag.So sure, let’s all rally behind the mail strike while people with actual hard jobs — the ones that keep people alive, safe, or fed — keep grinding without the luxury of walking off the job every time their feelings get hurt.Sincerely,One **bleep** off lady
Thanks for sharing. It's how I feel as well. I'm very angry. I don't like sitting around being POd at the world all the time... not being able to list stuff (since it won't be seen if the store is on holidays) and not having sales and stuff to ship gives me lots of time to stew, and it's not good for my mental health. I have family members that make me fume... but every now and again I get distracted and think about other things. There is nothing distracting me from the anger I feel about the Canada Post strike.
C.
Meeting with Minister Lightbound: Report Back
Thursday October 9 2025
2023-2027/341
No. 150
Members of CUPW’s National Executive Board and Negotiating Committees met with the Minister responsible for Canada Post, Joël Lightbound, and his staff on the evening of October 8, 2025, for just over an hour.
The Union spoke to Minister Lightbound about a number of issues regarding his recent announcement and its impact on negotiations with Canada Post. We raised concerns about the Government’s planned cutbacks and their impacts on the frequency of delivery and delivery standards. We discussed trends in parcel volumes and pointed to the $376 million in new revenue from the long-awaited postage increase this year.
We also informed the Minister of things Canada Post has been omitting from its public narrative, like the hundreds of supervisor positions that have been added over the last five years while cutting CUPW maintenance, sorting, and delivery positions. Although there are fewer people to supervise, Canada Post is spending more money on supervisors.
We believe that management has also been using Purolator to run Canada Post into the ground. By sending product to its subsidiary while postal workers are in a legal strike position, Canada Post is doing an end run around the new anti-scab laws.
We used Canada Post’s Annual Reports to show how management is being deceptive about parcel volumes and the share of the parcel market they claim to have lost.
The Minister and his staff appeared to be interested in what we had to say. Based on the new information we provided him, we expect him to look into the issues that we raised.
We called on the Minister to rescind his planned service cuts which he announced September 25. However, at the end of the meeting the Minister said the announcements he made would stand. We told the Minister that a full public mandate review is overdue and required to make changes to Canada Post’s mandate.
The Union also reminded the Minister that the only way for this dispute to come to an end is for Canada Post to offer postal workers ratifiable collective agreements. The Government’s interventions have only emboldened the Employer and undermined free and fair collective bargaining.
The Minister made a commitment to reach out to us again within a few days.
Postal workers are fighting for public services, good jobs within our communities and a strong, sustainable post office.
In solidarity,
Jan Simpson
National President
Letter to Patty Hajdu - The Liberal Government and Canada Post’s Continued Undermining of Free and Fair Collective Bargaining
Wednesday October 8 2025
The Honourable Patty Hajdu À
Minister of Labour
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
Dear Minister,
RE: The Liberal Government and Canada Post’s Continued Undermining of Free and Fair Collective Bargaining
I am writing to express my deep concern and disappointment that your government’s interventions have helped Canada Post avoid serious bargaining, undermining what should be a free and fair collective bargaining process with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW).
Over the course of these negotiations, there has been a repeated and troubling pattern of political intervention that has delayed, disrupted, and ultimately disrespected the bargaining process. Instead of fostering genuine dialogue and progress, the Liberal government and Canada Post have made a mockery of collective bargaining, an institution meant to protect the rights of workers and ensure fair outcomes.
After CUPW tabled its offers on August 20 in good faith, Canada Post took over 40 days to respond. When it finally did, the Corporation presented global offers that were virtually identical to the ones our members had already rejected, while adding new rollbacks that further erode working conditions. These rollbacks are based on Minister Lightbound’s unilateral implementation of the Kaplan Report; done with no consultation with the union or the public. This is not bargaining. It is stalling. It is a deliberate attempt to frustrate and demoralize workers while misleading the public into blaming postal workers, all to shield the Corporation from accountability for its mismanagement and refusal to bargain in good faith.
Minister, you have clearly stated that the previous offers were not what the members wanted. Given that Canada Post has now returned with essentially the same proposals plus additional concessions, what will your government be saying to the Corporation about its conduct?
It is obvious that the employer is not negotiating in good faith but rather engaging in a calculated game at the expense of postal workers and the Canadian public, who rely on these important public services.
The fact that your government has allowed, and even enabled, this behaviour is disgraceful. Each intervention, whether through public statements, behind-the-scenes pressure, or tacit approval, has taken us further away from a fair resolution and deeper into political theatre.
Postal workers deserve respect. They deserve a government and an employer that negotiate honestly, not one that uses delay tactics and recycled offers to push an agenda that undermines good jobs and public service.
I urge your government to take immediate action to hold Canada Post accountable and to ensure that collective bargaining is restored to what it is meant to be: a fair, transparent, and respectful process between equal parties.
Sincerely,
Jan Simpson
National President
Canadian Union of Postal Workers
