{"id":194525,"date":"2018-12-18T20:37:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T01:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=194525"},"modified":"2018-12-18T20:55:47","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T01:55:47","slug":"post-office-restores-normal-delivery-times-as-mediated-talks-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/12\/18\/post-office-restores-normal-delivery-times-as-mediated-talks-fail\/","title":{"rendered":"Post office restores normal delivery times as mediated talks fail"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
\u201cWith continued progress, we are now in a position to restore our normal holiday delivery service guarantees for much of the country,\u201d\u00a0Canada\u00a0Post\u00a0said in a statement. (File Photo By P199 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA \u2014 The restoration of delivery service guarantees by\u00a0Canada\u00a0Post\u00a0\u2014 three weeks after striking postal workers were forced back to work \u2014 proves the shipment backlogs Ottawa used to justify legislating an end to rotating walkouts were \u201cfiction,\u201d says the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.<\/p>\n

The Crown agency announced Tuesday it had caught up on most parcel delivery backlogs that had been created by the sporadic labour disruptions that began Oct. 22.<\/p>\n

As a result, the corporation said its normal holiday service commitments were being restored across most of\u00a0Canada, except the West Coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith continued progress, we are now in a position to restore our normal holiday delivery service guarantees for much of the country,\u201d\u00a0Canada\u00a0Post\u00a0said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis means Canadians can expect normal holiday delivery timelines for parcels. The exception remains items headed to or departing Vancouver as backlogs there continue to cause additional delays.\u201d<\/p>\n

The announcement came as the mediation process aimed at bridging the impasse between the\u00a0post\u00a0office and its unionized employees came to an abrupt end.<\/p>\n

The federal government legislated an end to job action by postal workers on Nov. 27 after\u00a0Canada\u00a0Post\u00a0complained that a backlog of parcels had reached historic levels ahead of the crucial holiday shopping period.<\/p>\n

At the time,\u00a0Canada\u00a0Post\u00a0warned the backlog could take until the end of January to clear up.<\/p>\n

The fact that service delivery guarantees are being restored just three weeks after back-to-work legislation was passed proves the parcel backlogs being claimed by\u00a0Canada\u00a0Post\u00a0were an illusion, said CUPW national president Mike Palecek.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reports that we’ve been getting, and are still getting, is that our plants are not even operating at capacity,\u201d Palecek said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have places where (Canada\u00a0Post) is offering members leave without pay to go home because they don’t have work. So I wouldn’t just question the backlog, I would say it was total fiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada\u00a0Post\u00a0said it delivered about four million packages between last Friday and Monday of this week, and will likely be able to deliver items ordered online in time for Christmas.<\/p>\n

It credited a lack of incoming packages \u2014 rather than a non-existent backlog \u2014 for the faster-than-expected pace of deliveries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncoming holiday parcel volumes continue to be down over 2017, and significantly below projections for this year,\u201d the agency said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result, our fully-enacted holiday delivery plans, which were built to deliver the projected double-digit parcel growth from online shopping this holiday season, continue to help our operations catch up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the corporation warned, whether packages arrive before Christmas will also depend on where the parcels are coming from. Some shipments from outside\u00a0Canada\u00a0might only be delivered in early January.<\/p>\n

During the walkouts,\u00a0Canada\u00a0Post\u00a0requested that its foreign partners halt deliveries to\u00a0Canada\u00a0while job action was underway. That request was lifted after postal workers were legislated back to their jobs.<\/p>\n

Under the back-to-work bill, a mediator-arbitrator was appointed to attempt reaching new collective agreements at\u00a0Canada\u00a0Post.<\/p>\n

But a week of talks aided by former\u00a0Canada\u00a0Industrial Relations Board chair Elizabeth MacPherson were halted Tuesday with both sides too far apart to extend the negotiations for another seven days, as was an option under the legislation.<\/p>\n

Palecek said there was no movement on the union’s key demands, which include health and safety concerns and calls for equality measures, during the talks.<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Labour Minister Patty Hajdu said the government was \u201cdisappointed\u201d the two sides were unable to reach negotiated agreements, but noted the bill sets out a path to bring the dispute to an end.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe legislation outlines guiding principles for a new collective agreement, which will ensure that a fair and balanced deal is arbitrated for the parties,\u201d Veronique Simard said in a statement.<\/p>\n

MacPherson is now expected to begin a process in January that will result in arbitrated settlements being imposed on\u00a0Canada\u00a0Post\u00a0and its 42,000 urban carriers and 8,000 rural and suburban employees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2014 The restoration of delivery service guarantees by\u00a0Canada\u00a0Post\u00a0\u2014 three weeks after striking postal workers were forced back to work …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":188770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-terry-pedwell","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}