Canada Post Negotiations Update and Our Plan For a Potential Work Stoppage

As you may be aware, Canada Post has issued a 72-hour notice to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers as of last night. The issuing of the notice does not necessarily mean that Canada Post will not be operating on Friday, but it means there can be no legal work disruption before 12:01 a.m. on Friday, July 8, 2016.

Some Strata Corporations have General Meetings scheduled in the near future which may be impacted- as notices cannot be mailed and delivered in accordance with the requirements of the Strata Property Act – see this article – for more information on those requirements.  If your strata corporation is impacted, your Property Manager will be in touch about potentially postponing the General Meeting as may be required.

Needless to say, the delivery of minutes, bylaw violation letters and other correspondence will be similarly impacted until the work stoppage ends (if it occurs).

With respect to payment of invoices and delivery of cheques, Stratawest is making arrangements to ensure that they are either picked up by trades/service providers or couriered to them as may be required to avoid late penalties.  Some vendors, such as utilities and telecommunication companies will be unsympathetic about the strike and will charge late penalties if they are not paid (even though they are unable to deliver to us an invoice, they do not see that as their concern), so we will make progress payments based on the previous invoice to mitigate this possibility.

The last time Canada Post experienced a work stoppage was in 2011 and this included 10 days of rotating strikes and a lockout before employees were legislated back to work by the Government. We’re hopeful that this labour disruption will not occur but are working diligently to ensure we have a solid plan in place in the event that it does.