Canadian Postal Workers Walk Off Jobs

Toronto, Ontario (AHN) - Letters, cards and other parcel sent from or bound for Canada via snail mail may take a longer time to reach their destinations following the start of a postal worker strike Monday.

About 300 postal workers in Toronto who are members of the Union of Postal Communications Employees struck to express their opposition to the new sick leave system Crown Corporation wants to introduce.

Counting postal employees from other provinces, a total of 2,100 letter carriers, support and technical staff have joined the industrial action.

Canada Post assured residents their mail delivery will not be affected by the strike after negotiations with the union reached a deadlock last week. Union president Richard Deslauriers belied the assurance. "We are planning to slow down the mail delivery and put pressure on the employers to return to the table with a decent offer to end this quickly," Deslauriers said, quoted by the Canadian Press.

Canada Post wants the current sick leave credits and other family-related leave provisions enjoyed by postal employees for more than a decade taken away and replaced with a short-term disability program which does not offer the same protection.

It said the final offer, aside from the short-term disability program which counts income protection for all employees, will feature a 2.5 percent salary hike for the first two years of a four-year contract and 2.75 percent increase in the last two years.

Aside from Toronto, picket lines were seen in Canada Post's offices in Ottawa, Halifax, Antigonish and Sydney in Nova Scotia, St. John's in Newfoundland and Labrador and Fredericton and Saint John in New Brunswick.