Canadian government asks labor board to intervene in Canada Post strike as Christmas nears

OTTAWA, Ontario — Canada's labor minister announced Friday he is asking the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order about 55,000 striking Canada Post employees back to work after a four week work stoppage that disrupted mail service during the busy holiday season.

Labor Minister Steven MacKinnon said if the board agrees the two sides are at an impasse, union members will be told to return to work until May, while an inquiry is launched to determine why the two sides cannot come to an agreement.

“Canadians are rightly fed up,” MacKinnon said. “I have a responsibility to protect Canadians.”

With Christmas fast approaching there was no apparent movement at the bargaining table.

MacKinnon had previously rebuffed calls for Ottawa to intervene, saying it’s up to the two sides to work out a deal. But he said Canadians — especially small businesses, people in remote communities and Indigenous people — have suffered greatly as a result of the strike.

The key issues include wages, job security and how to staff a proposed expansion into weekend delivery.

“The Union denounces in the strongest terms this assault on our constitutionally protected right to collectively bargain and to strike,” the Canadian Union of Postal Workers said in a statement. “This order continues a deeply troubling pattern in which the government uses its arbitrary powers to let employers off the hook.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government previously forced the country’s two major railroads into arbitration, ending that work stoppage.

MacKinnon said Canada Post is built to deliver letters but letter volumes have dropped dramatically and there is a highly competitive parcel delivery market.

“There are major structural changes in that industry that have to be accounted for. There are workers aspirations that have to be accounted for,” MacKinnon said. “Those are interests that are tough to reconcile.”