Responding Submissions of Canada Post Corporation

Response of CPAA to Further Submissions of CUPW

CUPW's reply to CPC's response (French only)

The Canada Industrial Relation Board (CIRB) has given a preliminary decision in the CUPW application to take over CPAA members. The Board has declined Canada Post’s request to wait until next year to start hearings.

Instead, it will look at CUPW’s allegations that the bargaining structure is broken and can be fixed by allowing CUPW to take over CPAA members.

You can read the entire decision below. As usual, we will keep you informed of any developments.

CIRB Decision

On January 31, the Canada Industrial Relations Board heard an argument by Canada Post that it was too soon to consider a bargaining unit review. CUPW is trying to convince the Board that most CPAA members and the RSMCs should be swept into their bargaining unit.

The Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) requested a case management meeting for November 5, 2010. This meeting will involve all the parties which may ultimately be impacted by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), request for a bargaining unit review. Aside from CPAA, there will be representatives from Canada Post Corporation and the Association of Postal Officials of Canada (APOC) and the CUPW. The intent of this meeting is to determine whether the CIRB will entertain or dismiss the CUPW request. As more information becomes available, we will update you.

If you have NOT SUBMITTED your Declaration of Wishes, please do so as soon as possible. If you have misplaced the one we sent you, you can download this document for completion. Please remember to fill in all the blanks and please sign it. The Declaration of Wishes should be mailed to:

George Ireland, C.A.
Welch & Company LLP
PO Box 8621 Stn T CSC
OTTAWA ON K1G 9Z9

CPAA is important to me because...

CPC Response

CPAA Response

CUPW's reply to CPAA's response

CUPW's reply to CPC's response

The documents submitted by CPAA, CUPW and the Canadian Industrial Relations Board, pertaining to the bargaining unit review requested by CUPW are available in both official languages and have been posted on the Association web site in their integral version. Unfortunately, some documents submitted by other parties might only be available in one or the other of the two official languages. These documents will only be posted on the English or French web page according to that language in which they are written.

After giving us barely 24 hours' notice, your Association got a hand-delivered document today from CUPW. That union will ask the Canada Industrial Relations Board to say that you, the members of CPAA, should lose your right to belong to the Association.

Rest assured, we will fight CUPW's blatant attempt to beef up its sagging membership by raiding another union.

In 2005, only 5 years ago, CUPW recognized, in writing, that CPAA had a right to exist, guaranteeing that its members could vote to stay in a separate, independent union, dedicated to the working lives and interests of workers in rural Canada. Since the introduction of the Modern Post, they are losing members and dues. Now, they want to fold the CPAA bargaining unit and all of the Association's members into the CUPW bargaining unit.

CUPW has done this while we are in the middle of a critical stage in bargaining, thinking it would take advantage of the Association and its members while our attention was elsewhere. They have underestimated you and they have underestimated the Association.

We will all have to work to make sure this "hostile takeover" is stopped. Over the coming weeks and months, we will keep you posted as this unfolds.