Trudeau Government Has Utter Contempt For Canada Post Workers

On December 13, the federal government did what many expected and forced striking Canada Post employees back to work. If anyone needed confirmation of the Trudeau government’s utter contempt for workers’ rights and free collective bargaining, this latest back-to-work order is further proof.

At the press conference announcing the government’s decision, Minister of Labour Steven MacKinnon again invoked his powers under s. 107 of the Canada Labour Code and requested that the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) order union members back to work if the Board determined no agreement could be reached expeditiously. As anticipated, the CIRB confirmed the parties were at an impasse and ‘paused’ the strike until May 22, 2025.

Frustrated members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) maintained picket lines until the last moments at locations across the country.

Prior to the government stepping in, federal mediation had been suspended on November 27 when it was determined that Canada Post management and the union remained too far apart.

Now with the strike in its fourth week and business organizations continuing to call for intervention, the government obliged and once again brought the hammer down to smash a strike.

In the days leading up to the Minister’s announcement, however, there seemed to be some movement toward further negotiations. In a package of counter proposals, the union indicated that it was willing to moderate on some issues, including long standing efforts to equalize conditions between members in the urban and rural/suburban bargaining units. This was apparently not enough to encourage Canada Post to withdraw its demands for concessions related to part-time work and pensions, paving the way for an eventual back-to-work order.

According to reporting from The Globe and Mail, intervention was necessary in this case because the labour Minister believed the strike had “proven too disruptive to the Canadian public.” Of course, strikes are inherently disruptive and it is frequently the level of disruption that determines a union’s leverage. A strike that allowed business to continue as usual would not be terribly effective. Nevertheless, the Liberal government has seemingly disregarded the fundamental role that strikes play in our industrial relations system and is further facilitating employers’ slow and steady withdrawal from the ‘post-war compromise’ between labour and capital.

This is the fifth time this year that the Liberals have intervened to end a high-profile strike in the federal jurisdiction.

Back in May, at the behest of then-labour minister Seamus O’Regan, the government pre-empted the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference from exercising its right to strike by instructing the CIRB to “investigate” whether the national railway system contained essential services. The Teamsters and rail companies had already negotiated a “maintenance of activities” protocol, agreeing that no such essential services existed. Nevertheless, the government’s overreach delayed negotiations and prevented rail workers from striking until later in the year.

Then, in late June, the government attempted to use s. 107 of the Code to end a strike by aircraft mechanics at WestJet. In perhaps one of the most striking instances of labour militancy this year, members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) continued their job action and forced the airline to capitulate to their demands. While the Minister had directed the CIRB to begin the process of arbitration, his directive was silent on the status of the AMFA’s strike, a loophole that the union took full advantage of.

In August, CN Rail and CPKC locked out their workers following the CIRB investigation into essential rail services. The Teamsters’ picket lines were barely erected before MacKinnon directed the CIRB to end the strike and impose arbitration. The government had apparently learned its lesson from the WestJet fiasco.

Finally, in November, port workers in British Columbia and Quebec were the next targets of the government’s new favourite weapon to end strikes. Striking members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) on the west coast and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in Montreal and Quebec City had strikes and lockouts snuffed out via the now infamous s. 107.

This brings us to the case of Canada Post. Throughout the negotiations and strike, the government continued to indicate an intention to remain on the sidelines and encouraged the union and Canada Post to reach an agreement on their own. Such assurances are now cold comfort.

Unlike the various interventions recounted above, however, with Canada Post the government did not request an order for binding arbitration. Instead, the Minister opted to convene an industrial inquiry commission to study why Canada Post and the CUPW have been unable to reach an agreement. This commission is set to issue a report to the Minster, Canada Post and the union by May 15, 2025, just ahead of the possible resumption of strike action. Until negotiations restart next May, union members will work under their previous collective agreements while receiving an additional 5 per cent wage increase.

The commission should consider the impact that continual government interference has on labour relations across the federal jurisdiction, though I wouldn’t count on it. When employers expect that the government will neutralize workers’ power by ending strikes, the former feel little compulsion to bargain in good faith. Moreover, as Teamsters Canada national president François Laporte recently argued, employers may be locking out workers with the intention of securing government intervention, a truly perverse outcome.

Most importantly, the establishment of an inquiry commission at Canada Post allowed for an immediate intervention to end the strike, while pushing resolution until May, when workers’ strike leverage is weaker. But it may also provide some cover as the government heads to court to defend its previous actions against the rail and port workers. That the Liberals allowed the strike to continue for as long as they did, and refrained from imposing arbitration, may save them from further legal troubles. Time will tell.

It’s important to keep in mind that as egregious as these recent government interventions are, they are part of a broader pattern of restricting workers’ collective freedom and autonomy. When it comes to CUPW, in particular, Conservative and Liberal federal governments have frequently resorted to back-to-work legislation, most recently in 2018 and 2011. But the issue of government interference goes back much further than this, to what the late Leo Panitch and Donald Swartz characterized as the “permanent exceptionalism” of governments forcing strikers back to their jobs, despite the formalization of union rights.

In fact, the frequency with which governments resorted to back-to-work legislation to end lawful strikes declined in the dozen or so years leading up to the Supreme Court’s recognition of the right to strike, largely because the number of strikes and person days lost to work stoppages also fell precipitously during this period. When the Supreme Court of Canada recognized the right to strike in 2015, this didn’t appreciably change the frequency of back-to-work orders. Governments continued to intervene to end strikes, but less often than they did when workers were exercising their strike muscles more frequently in the late 1970s and 1980s.

In some ways, then, the constitutional right to strike is more symbolic than material. As labour law scholar Eric Tucker has argued, our liberal political order prioritizes individual freedom above collective rights and thus has a difficult time incorporating the latter into its legal regime.

The number of strikes and the ability of workers to maintain them is a question of class power and, unfortunately, the balance of class forces has tipped decidedly in the favour of employers over the past 40 years. Workers who have the strategic power to cause significant economic disruption by striking, and thus the potential to extract meaningful concessions from employers, face the coercive power of the state, though this has taken more opaque forms under the Trudeau Liberals this past year.

Through its various interventions, the current government has affirmed that profit takes precedence over what limited rights workers have managed to secure. Challenging governments through the courts, while it can at times allow unions to achieve short-term relief, is ultimately insufficient. Fighting back against government interference requires building the collective capacity of workers to resist, a long-term project that should now be a topic of discussion at union meetings across the country.

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