The CP announcement means that on Friday, if no agreement is reached, then they have the option of locking the workers out at any time, which they will probably do immediately, unless an agreement looks at the very least imminent.
I wish CUPW would put the CP offer to a vote. I know the union members have already had a strike vote but they have not voted on the 'final offer' itself. The sobering prospect of being without an income for 2, 3, 4 months or more, may make them agreeable to CP's offer.
It's one thing to give your Union bosses a strike mandate so they have more negotiating power, it's quite another to have your income cut off when your car payments, mortgages etc still have to be paid.
What I really wish is that we lived in a country where something as archaic as postal disruptions didn't exist any longer. It's ridiculous. Third World countries have postal disruptions....Canada is one of the premiere countries in the world and should be well beyond this.
All that is needed is binding arbitration. A fair arbitrator can be appointed and his/her word would be final. Fair settlement and no disruption of services to 33 million people (who, at the moment, are apparently less important than 50,000 postal workers....do I need to quote Spock?)
