Canada Post employees could be ordered back to work as early as next week, but they are not going quietly.
Hundreds of members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) held a rally outside a mail sorting plant in Scarborough Thursday to protest Labour Minister Lisa Raitt's intention to table back-to-work legislation.
The legislation would give an arbitrator 90 days to choose between the final offers of Canada Post and CUPW, which would then form the basis of a new collective bargaining agreement.
"We are about to get the shaft and until we go back to work we want to make sure Canada Post understands we are not happy employees," Mike Duquette, president of the Scarborough local, told the crowd. "The arbitrator doesn't have the ability to negotiate, he doesn't have the ability to come up with a compromise and that is not very good.
On Thursday Durquette said it is his understanding that back-to-work legislation could be tabled in the House of Commons as early as Friday.
In the meantime, he said talks have broken down between CUPW and Canada Post.
"They are just going to wait for the legislation," he said.
Marie Clarke Walker, executive vice president of the Canadian Labour Congress, urged the crowd to keep fighting.
"The people have spoken from one end of the country to the other end of the country," she said. "You have support from everybody because we know that what you are asking for and what you are fighting for is something that is important to all of us. Respect, dignity, pensions. It's something we all deserve."
The federal government legislated striking postal workers back to work in 1997 - the last time the union went on strike - after they were off the job two weeks.
