Unionized workers at Canada Post have rejected the Crown corporation’s latest contract offer in two votes.
The offer was turned down with 68.5 per cent of ballots (23,440) cast by urban postal operation workers, according to the Canada Industrial Relations Board, which reported an 80.4 per cent overall turnout (34,228 voters of 42,574).
In the second vote, 69.4 per cent of voters among rural and suburban mail carriers rejected the offer. Some 82.8 per cent of 9,142 workers turned out.
The vote comes after more than a year and a half of talks with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), which represents about 55,000 postal service workers.
The offer included wage hikes of about 13 per cent over four years, but it also would have added part-time workers that Canada Post has said are necessary to keep the postal service afloat.
Voting opened on July 21 after federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to step in and put Canada Post’s latest offer to a vote.
Jan Simpson, CUPW’s national president, had urged unionized workers to reject the proposal in order to protect the integrity of the bargaining process, and she criticized Hajdu for forcing a vote.
“By saying yes, we tell them that it’s acceptable to ignore free and fair collective bargaining, dismiss our union’s democratic processes and structures, and send a message to governments that it’s okay to trample over your rights as a worker,” she said in a statement published on July 17.
