Folks may want to consider getting their urgent parcels posted, as a countrywide mail interruption may be coming as early as May 30.
On 72-hours notice, both the national leaders of Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and Canada Post are now legally able to either call a strike, or have an employee lockout respectively.
In last month's CUPW strike vote, the union received strong support from its members, similar to past rounds of collective bargaining.
CUPW Local 854 president Ivan Bonnell says the current situation for its members, located in 100 Mile House and Williams Lake, is dependent on that national decision.
While it doesn't necessarily mean a strike will happen, he doesn't think it likely an agreement will be reached soon, as negotiations have been ongoing since October 2010.
"It's the intention of the union and the corporation to try and achieve a negotiated collective agreement here, but it's been over six months we've been at it now and the parties still seem fairly far apart in my mind."
During that time, the bargaining has gone to a federal conciliation process to help the parties come to a resolution and Bonnell notes, more recently, this has also involved a mediator.
"The parties will continue to still talk with the mediator until the point when either of them determines it is fruitless to continue this anymore."
However, a Canada Post release states it has tabled its "final offer" with CUPW as part of this negotiations process, and the proposals are fair, reasonable and represent its best offer to the union.
On May 22, CUPW responded with its own offer, to which to Canada Post expressed "extreme disappointment," stating it would add $1.4 billion in new costs during the term of the contract.
Bonnell notes there are two national collective agreements that apply to his local, and this round of bargaining only involves the Urban negotiation agreement, which covers post office workers.
The other agreement applies to Rural Route Mail Service Carriers, which, he says, expires this year and will be coming up for negotiations this fall.
"We await the outcome of these discussions to see if whether or not we're going to still be working and providing service to the Cariboo-Chilcotin, and the rest of Canada, or whether we'll be walking the sidewalks."
