‘We will fight’ if back-to-work bill passes, postal union tells Ottawa

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he still hopes agreements can be struck to end mail disruptions across the country after his government introduced back-to-work legislation that could force striking Canada Post employees to put down their picket signs.

But while he conceded legislating an end to a labour dispute is never the best option, Trudeau said his government must act to protect small businesses and the livelihoods of Canadians affected by a month of rotating strikes.

“While we are continuing to hold out hope that there’s going to be a settlement or an agreement at the bargaining table, we also have to do what’s responsible and prepare for the possible need for legislation,” Trudeau said Thursday at an event in Calgary.

Labour Minister Patty Hajdu tabled a back-to-work bill in the House of Commons but stressed the government would hold off debating the bill to give a special mediator time to settle the labour dispute.

Critics complained the move undermined the collective-bargaining process just one day after mediator Morton Mitchnick resumed efforts to break the impasse between the Crown corporation and its 50,000 employees.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association called the legislation “a serious threat to workers’ constitutional rights.”

The Liberal government did not come to the decision lightly, Hajdu told the Commons after tabling the bill, along with a concurrent motion to fast-track the legislation if necessary.

“We wouldn’t come down this road, (but) we have exhausted every option,” she said.

A vote on the motion to speed the legislation through the Commons could come as early as Friday.

Members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have been holding rotating walkouts since Oct. 22 to back their contract demands, causing massive backlogs of unsorted mail and packages.

Isolated strikes saw postal workers hit picket lines Thursday in Pickering, Dryden, Elliot Lake and Blind River, Ont. Walkouts continued in Acton, Georgetown, Tillsonburg, Ajax and Bolton in Ontario, and in Calgary and Kamloops, B.C.

CUPW has warned of a legal battle if the federal government passes the back-to-work legislation, calling such a move unconstitutional and noting that a judge ruled as illegal a similar bill introduced in 2011 by the previous Conservative government.

“We went to court and won this fight after the 2011 legislation,” the union said on its website.

“We will fight once again, should that right be taken away.”

But Hajdu said the Liberal government’s legislation is “very different” from what was passed under the Harper government.