Why these are our best and final offers

July 18, 2025, 04:59 pm 5 comments

On May 28, 2025, Canada Post presented its best and final global offers to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) to reach negotiated agreements. These are the offers employees will be voting on. The full offer documents to both the Urban and RSMC bargaining units explain why these are our best and final offers:

“We want to be clear – this is as far as the Corporation can go. We have scrutinized every aspect of our operations and finances, stretched our position as far as responsibly possible, and made difficult decisions to table an offer that reflects the full extent of our financial capacity.”

The full offer documents also outline:

• the enhancements, such as the signing bonus, that will “provide immediate, tangible support to employees.”
• the significant items the Corporation has withdrawn over the course of our negotiations with CUPW, including “no changes to post-retirement benefits” and “no move to a defined contribution pension for future employees (the defined benefit plan will remain).”
• that employees will keep the “gains they’ve secured over the years,” including job security, a defined benefit pension plan, comprehensive health and post-retirement benefits, and vacation and pre-retirement leave.
• “In return, Canada Post must implement operational changes that are essential to our long-term viability.”

The offer concludes with: “This best and final offer represents a balanced, realistic, and forward-looking blueprint – one that protects employee gains while enabling the transformation necessary for Canada Post to survive and thrive in a new reality.”

We still stand by every word we said. In fact, our business has declined since strike activity resumed on May 23, 2025.

External labour experts on the urgent need for change at Canada Post

In the past six months, two experienced and well-respected Canadian labour arbitration and mediation experts have spent considerable time studying Canada Post from different perspectives. Both reached similar conclusions on our financial situation and the urgent need for change:

• William Kaplan, a highly respected expert in arbitration and mediation who is familiar with Canada Post and who led the recent Industrial Inquiry Commission (IIC) into Canada Post’s operations and finances.
• Paula Knopf, a labour relations and dispute resolution arbitrator and mediator in the private and public sectors since 1980, who was appointed to facilitate discussions in the Corporation’s recent negotiations with the Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association (CPAA). Those negotiations ended in a new collective agreement.

William Kaplan – IIC report, May 2025

The full IIC report, and a summary, can be found at infopost.ca/IIC. In his report, Kaplan detailed the challenges Canada Post is facing, and what needs to be done to “arrest and then reverse the growing financial losses.”

“Everyone who has looked at Canada Post and its operations readily concluded that Canada Post was headed for a fiscal cliff. That is no longer true. Canada Post is effectively insolvent. It has arrived at this destination.” p. 55

“There is no future for Canada Post if it cannot make use of part-time employees to meet its needs during the week and on weekends based on volume. …Introduction of a part-time weekend workforce, together with the flexibility to deploy part-timers during the week as needed, and based on volume, will not impact existing employees and their negotiated entitlements.” p. 86

“…there is an immediate need to reorient the core business to facilitate seven-day-a-week parcel delivery and to make best use of its employees.” p. 70

“The world has changed, and both parties (Canada Post and CUPW) must evolve and adapt. Tinkering with the status quo is not an option. … The public service CUPW’s members proudly deliver is on the brink of collapse.” pp. 89-91

Paula Knopf – CPAA Final Award, June 2025

Working through a challenging situation with Knopf’s assistance as mediator, Canada Post and the CPAA successfully negotiated a new collective agreement in June 2025.

In her final award dated June 13, 2025, which formalized the parties’ agreement, Knopf noted that the realities of Canada Post’s financial situation, as detailed in Kaplan’s IIC report, “had an impact on the collective bargaining between Canada Post and the CPAA.”

“In Commissioner William Kaplan’s Industrial Inquiry Report, released on May 15, 2025, he addressed, inter alia, the realities of the financial situation Canada Post is facing. His stark conclusions included the following statement:

“Canada Post is facing an existential crisis: It is effectively insolvent, or bankrupt. Without thoughtful, measured, staged, but immediate changes, its fiscal situation will continue to deteriorate.”

A reasonable, stable path forward

While our deteriorating financial situation over the years has been well-documented, the resumption of strike activities on May 23, 2025, has had a further negative impact.

In June, Canada Post’s losses from operations increased to approximately $10 million a day as customers moved their shipments to other delivery companies that can provide certainty.

The status quo is unsustainable.

We remain hopeful our employees will see these best and final offers as a reasonable step toward providing certainty and stability for the road ahead.

If employees vote to accept them, these offers will become new four-year collective agreements, effective immediately and in place until January 31, 2028.

In the event the vote ends without a resolution to the current round of negotiations, no one can predict what may happen beyond continued uncertainty.

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