Union challenge to Canada Post over third-party retail staff

Canada Post is facing a union challenge to its position that workers at postal retail counters run by third-party, franchise-based pharmacies are not federal employees of the Crown Corporation. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers is currently seeking to recruit employees to its membership from more than 2,000 postal counters hosted by drug store chains including Shoppers Drug Mart, Pharmaprix, Familiprix and Uniprix.

But it has denounced the postal operator for deploying a “small army of lawyers” to try to prevent the employees from joining the union.

The case is now before the Canada Industrial Relations Board.

Canada Post argues that it does not pay or manage staff offering postal services from counters run by other companies, and therefore they cannot be considered part of the union’s collective bargaining.

The CUPW, which has around 55,000 members and is currently in the final few weeks of negotiating a Collective Bargaining Agreement before strikes become a possibility, has claimed Canada Post is seeking to use the pharmacy counter staff as “cheap labour”.

“Precarious”

Jacques Valiquette, the union’s national director for the Montreal region, said: “Although they handle mail and do the same work we do, the people working in these outlets earn the minimum wage and have precarious jobs.”

Despite the litigation, the CUPW has already persuaded 211 employees in Montreal and Saskatoon to join up, and said a further 25 workers from the Quebec region have also applied to become members.

This would see the total number of pharmacy counters that have been effectively unionized rising to 51, the union claims.

“Organising is a win-win situation,” said Valiquette. “Postal workers at these counters will be able to make improvements in their working lives and Canada Post will not be able to use a cheap labour strategy to undermine our collective agreements.”

Canada Post is not commenting on the case currently being heard by the Canada Industrial Relations Board beyond confirming in a statement: “The issue of whether employees working at postal counters in third-party, franchise-operated pharmacies can also be considered federal employees of Canada Post is currently before the Canada Industrial Relations Board. We cannot discuss the details on an issue that is currently in litigation.”

However, spokeswoman Anick Losier told Post&Parcel today that the status of people working at Canada Post retail counters in franchise-operated pharmacies had been the same “for more than 20 years”.

The company said employees at independent retail counters – “namely those locations which also provide postal-related services, in pharmacies across the country” – were not hired, trained, managed or paid by Canada Post, but by the pharmacy franchise owners.

“Franchises are independent businesses that run their own operations; Canada Post is not involved in the running of these businesses,” said the company’s statement.

Bargaining

Meanwhile, the CUPW has been in talks with Canada Post since October seeking a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, filing to begin a formal conciliation process back in January.

Should an agreement not come, it believes a possible strike or lockout could come by the end of April.

The current stand-off sees the union objecting to new work methods it has claimed to be “unsafe”, as Canada Post continues its five-year Postal Transformation programme of upgrading its facilities and procedures for the modern postal era.

The union is also objecting to proposed reforms to health benefits and pension arrangements for postal employees.

Valiquette said: “As negotiations between Canada Post and CUPW continue, we want labour standards to improve for all postal workers.”