November 18, 2025 - No. 4
Hands Off Canada Post!
Support the Just Demands of Postal Workers!
Support rally for postal workers and to defend the public post office, Brampton, May 31, 2025
Workers' Forum: Please update us on the current situation at Canada Post and negotiations for new contracts for postal workers?
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Learie Charles, President, Learie Charles: November 15 marked one year since postal workers began an all-out national strike for improvements in their pay and working conditions and to advocate for measures to sustain and develop the Post Office as a Public Service.
On December 17, 2024 we were forced back to work, after 32 days on the line, by the government directing the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to invoke Section 107 of Canada's Labour Code banning any kind of strike action until May 22, 2025. Since then, postal workers nationally have used various forms of strike struggle as important tools in their fight for their just demands.
Workers across Ontario are standing with us in defence of our rights and the public postal service and denouncing the federal government's interference in the negotiations and acquiescence to Canada Post's plans to destroy the public postal service, hand over its profitable aspects to narrow private interests and trample the rights of postal workers.
WF: How would you characterize the actions of the Carney government and Canada Post with regard to the public postal service?
LC: Canada Post and the various ministers who have been involved in enforcing the federal government's anti-postal worker policy are telling a false story to justify the destruction of Canada's public postal service. It is ironic that Carney frames his government's so-called mandate as one of nation-building.
Historically, Canada Post was created as a publicly-controlled service that connected every community and household and guaranteed service to all, a genuine nation-building project. Today's post office is seen by government through the eyes of the monopolies which covet the lucrative parcel business from which they make tremendous profits through the exploitation of gig workers. It is perhaps one of the most shameful episodes of a government relentlessly pursuing direct measures to destroy a national public service, a unique service that makes daily contact with every household in Canada.
The stopping of the strike in December 2024 was followed by five months of relentless propaganda by Canada Post and an Industrial Inquiry Commission (led by William Kaplan, invoked under Section 108 of the Canada Labour Code) which simply codified everything destructive which the various boards of Canada Post have proposed for the past 25 years.
With regard to contract negotiations, within days of the release of the Kaplan report on May 15, Canada Post began putting forward proposals which they knew postal workers would never accept. Their "Final Offer" contained one measure after another to fire workers, to reduce the working conditions, and to dictate that the role of Canada Post should be reduced to merely last mile delivery support for the U.S. conglomerates -- who have control of the lucrative parcel delivery section of the industry.
Then, based on the delusions of Canada Post that the workers would support their "Final Offer," the Carney government ordered the CIRB to force the workers to vote on it. In a vote organized and controlled by the CIRB, 70 per cent of Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) members rejected it.
Canada Post is actively involved in undermining the public postal service, as a majority shareholder in Purolator, and in encouraging its customers to use other businesses to do their delivery. Purolator began in the 1960s as Trans Canada Couriers Ltd, a subsidiary of American Courier Corporation. The company was purchased in 1967 by Purolator, a U.S. manufacturer of oil and air filters. In 1987, it was sold to Canadian owners. In 1993, Canada Post became the majority shareholder and now owns 91 per cent. Purolator specializes in package delivery and has been systematically used by Canada Post management to take package delivery out of the hands of postal workers.
Scarborough postal workers picket Purolator, October 4, 2025
The negotiations to renew the two collective agreements between Canada Post and CUPW at this time are of particular significance. The contracts covering the Urban Unit and the Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers (RSMCs) unit which expired at the end of 2023 were extensions of contracts imposed through binding arbitration in 2018, extended by mutual agreement during the COVID-19 pandemic with only the addition of wage increases of two per cent in 2022 and 2023.
This agreement was made with assurances from Canada Post that wages and other important issues related to working conditions and measures to expand Canada Post services would be dealt with in negotiations when the contracts expired at the end of 2023. Those negotiations began in October 2023 and for over two years now they have refused to negotiate and want us to live with government and company dictates on everything important for the collective agreements.
As well, during these negotiations Purolator has been offering deep discounts to small business customers and Canada Post managers have been openly advising customers to make their package deliveries through Purolator or other private couriers. Purolator has also grown its business by purchasing Livingston International, Canada's "largest customs brokerage firm" in February 2025.
Canada Post falsely claims that it cannot be profitable, although it was consistently profitable from 1995 to 2010. It claims that it is insolvent now in order to justify massive service cuts and attacks on the wages and working conditions of postal workers. We have witnessed the deliberate actions of Canada Post to reduce its parcel delivery and then claim that parcel delivery is down to justify cuts in service.
Their "new" offer since we voted to reject their "Final Offer" on August 1 is even more ridiculous. It is the already rejected offer along with other cuts in working conditions demanded by the Carney government, which has included Canada Post in the government operations that it has decreed must find seven per cent in savings. In particular they now want the full ability to lay off large numbers of postal workers without objections from the union.
Rally
on Parliament Hill in support of postal workers and the public post
office, following the government's announcement it
would end door-to-door delivery, October 1, 2025.
WF: Canadians and Quebeckers and numerous
organizations, such as the National Farmers Union which keenly
appreciates the necessity of the public postal service in rural and
remote communities, have expressed support for CUPW's proposals to
expand and strengthen, not
destroy, the public postal service. Can you talk to us about the public
response to the attacks by the government and Canada Post on the post
office?
LC: It is a public scandal which is taking place. All the measures being taken to destroy the post office are being done without national consultation with the people of Canada. The national consultation was supposed to take place throughout the country, where people can say what kind of post office they need, between October 2025 and March 2026. It is not happening and instead there are dictates coming from government ministers and Canada Post.
It is not just postal workers who will suffer if the government
carries out its plan to end home delivery, close rural post offices and
lay off thousands of postal workers. Rural and remote communities are
not and never will be served by the monopolies' courier companies
because there is no
profit to be made in that. Canada Post has always been their lifeline -- the only way to
get food, medicine, building supplies and other essentials to remote
communities.
But who is making the decisions on the future of Canada Post? Not the people who depend on it. Not the workers who know what needs to be done to make it profitable and better able to serve the people. There is no consultation, not with communities, not with the union.
In fact, the Industrial Inquiry Commission which resulted in the Kaplan Report dismissed all the union's proposals for expanding parcel service, implementing postal banking and more and endorsed Canada Post's "sky is falling" plans to destroy the public postal service based on false information about the cause of the corporation's financial difficulties.
For example, Kaplan repeated Canada Post's claim that the 25 per cent increase in postal rates would only generate $80 million in increased revenue. So far this year postage stamp increases have generated $376 million and are, in the union's estimate, on track to bring in nearly $800 million in new revenues. Without providing any evidence or context, Prime Minister Carney, Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement Joël Lightbound and the CEO of Canada Post are repeating that Canada Post is losing $10 million a day.
The minister speaks as if ending home delivery will have little impact. That is not true. The proportion of the population who live in rural, remote and Indigenous communities, or who are seniors and people with disabilities is 40 per cent. Canada Post's most recent annual report reveals that more than half of Canadian addresses received some form of mail delivery services to their home or place of business: 24 per cent received service to the door, 28 per cent to centralized points such as apartment lockboxes and four per cent to rural mailboxes.
Postal workers hold press conference following
government announcement of plans to end door-to-door delivery, Toronto October 25, 2025.
Not to mention the effect of the closure of rural post offices. Someone in a rural area may need to travel hundreds of kilometres to access a post office to be able to send a parcel. In cases where private monopolies have taken over the service, the good jobs of postal workers have been replaced by low-paid precarious gig work.
The focus of the union right now is on taking their issues directly to the public to solidify their support for our struggle. We are going door to door in our communities to win the people's support. We are calling on all our allies in the labour movement and in the communities to assist us in taking the message to the people.
This attack on the public service that is provided every day by postal workers is ultimately aimed at making the public pay more for postal services. That money goes into the pockets of the monopolies to whom Canada Post has given dominance of the parcel delivery trade, leaving the non-profitable but important delivery services to a depleted Post Office to look after.
I thank Workers' Forum for its continuing support for postal workers' struggles and the struggles of working people. It is an important part of their success.
London postal workers picket during rotating strike, November 6, 2025.
(Photos: CUPW, UFCW)
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Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca