Postal service is unlikely to be disrupted in Sault Ste. Marie tomorrow as Canada Post workers in Alberta and the Northwest Territories are set to begin job action on Monday.
“We could be locked out (on Monday) by the employer, but there wouldn’t be a service interruption from the CUPW side of it,” said Mike Doherty, president of the Sault Ste. Marie local Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW).
A federally appointed mediator was called in on Friday to help with the months long contract negotiations between Canada Post and it’s workers.
If no settlement is reached by midnight, job action in the form of refusal to work overtime will begin by CUPW employees in Alberta and the Northwest Territories tomorrow.
The same job action will then move to other provinces on a rotating day-by-day basis and will only affect Sault Ste. Marie on the days Ontario participates.
CUPW said they would give each province 24 hours notice before job action begins.
This could potentially mean there is some delay in service in the Sault this week.
However, based on what CUPW representatives are saying, it seems that even on the days overtime is refused in Ontario, the average customer in the Sault won’t notice anything.
“Our commitment to any type of strike action is to just refuse to take overtime. That will be on a rotating basis around the country and it would only happen approximately every ten days. It’s a very minimalistic approach that will have darn near no impact on the customer, employee, and not much impact on employer as well,” said Doherty.
“Everyone is still going to work (and) if there are any delays in mail service, it will be for one day and it will not be an entire section of town,” said Mark Evard, CUPW’s national director for the Central Region.
Doherty and Evard said they could only speak for CUPW’s actions and that Canada Post could lock them out at any time.