Canada Post parcel volumes are down 50% year over year and continue to drop as ongoing tensions with labor over a new contract erode shipper confidence in the national mail carrier. The package business’s decline, however, predates the current dispute by nearly a decade, the result of management’s inability to respond to competition from private courier companies, according to industry analysts and stakeholders.
Negotiators representing Canada Post and unionized employees are scheduled to resume contract talks on Wednesday.
Many businesses have fled to alternative last-mile delivery providers after a five-week strike during the holiday season and the threat of yet another strike, the postal operator and parcel service firms said last week as a deadline approached. On Sunday, Canada Post quantified the contraction, saying shipments are half what they were at this time a year ago.
Canada Post avoided a shutdown on Friday when members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers opted to keep the pressure on by declining overtime assignments, limiting their work to eight hours per day and 40 hours per week.
The state-owned corporation said it received a response Sunday to its latest offer on May 21. The parties met near Ottawa with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services, which operated as an interlocutor passing documents and ideas back and forth in lieu of face-to-face meetings, according to a CUPW account of the talks.
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