Mail expected to start moving by Tuesday
By The Nelson Daily Sports
West Kootenay and Boundary residents should see letters, cheques, and those dreaded bills, flowing to their residences by Tuesday after the Conservative government pushed through back-to-work legislation during the weekend.
Following a one-day marathon session in the House of Commons, the Senate passed the Canada Post back-to-work legislation Sunday.
Shortly after the Senate passed the bill with a vote of 53 to 26, the bill received royal assent pushing the legislation into law.
By Tuesday, nearly 50,000 locked-out Canada Post workers throughout the country, and including the Nelson and area, will be forced back to the job under settlement terms arranged by government, rather than through a collective bargaining process.
Postal workers will be back on the job 24 hours after the bill becomes law, said Labour Minister Lisa Raitt, who introduced the bill last Monday and was in the Senate on Sunday to defend it.
The president of the postal union reassured the Senate that all workers would be back on the job as expected on Tuesday.
“We’re ready to go,” Denis Lemelin said Sunday, saying their priority has always been to provide and maintain reliable mail service to Canadians. “We want everybody at work the first day.”
