A lockout and rotating strikes that brought mail service to a halt ended Monday, bringing carriers back to the street.
The government’s back to work legislation passed through the House of Commons Saturday and the Senate Sunday and mandated workers return to the job by Monday night.
Speaking Monday, Canada Post spokesperson Jon Caines said mail service would resume Tuesday, but he expected it would be a few days before the system was running at normal levels.
“It will take some time; we have our sorting folks going into the sorting facilities tonight and we have some mail from other countries accumulated as well, but once we get through that we should be back to normal operations pretty soon,” he said.
Caines said mail volumes dropped through the rotating strike period and they hope to see customers return now that the uncertainty is over.
“We have inconvenienced a lot of people and we apologize for that, but they have been very patient and hopefully we can continue with their patience for a few more days until we get our network up to normal delivery standards,” he said.
The back-to-work bill passed over the weekend after the opposition NDP attempted to block it through a marathon filibuster that saw the house in session continuously from Thursday to Saturday afternoon.
To end the dispute, the bill mandates that Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers go to arbitration. The arbitrator will hear from both sides on the remaining impasses and will have to choose between the final offer of one side or the other. That decision will be binding on both parties.
Once appointed, the arbitrator will have 90 days to come up with a new collective agreement.
The bill also sets a new wage structure for the union, giving workers raises of 1.75 per cent, 1.5 per cent in the first two years of the contract and two per cent in the last two years.
That offer is less generous than Canada Post’s last offer, which allowed for raises of 1.9 per cent in the first three years and two per cent in the last year of the contract. CUPW rejected that offer over other issues, however.
Caines said the corporation is happy to have workers back on the job and he believes they will be able to put this dispute behind them.
“Our manager and supervisors are welcoming employees back to work, a lot of them are just happy to be back at work, that is what they have told us and we are happy to have them,” he said.
Rural Gazette readers who have been able to pick up the paper through boxes in the county will now resume getting their deliveries through Canada Post.
