Canada Post employees ended their month-long strike Tuesday, less than a week before Christmas, after being ordered back to work by the federal Labour Relations board. 

The Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) ended the strike at the request of Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon, which he characterized as "highly disrespectful," after it spanned 32 days. 

"Postal services will resume on Tuesday," posted to X. "The Canada Industrial Relations Board has found that Canada Post and CUPW are unlikely to reach a deal by the end of the year. The Board has therefore ordered an extension of the current collective agreements, and a resumption of operations."

Meanwhile, New Democrat MPs are "reflecting" on the unprecedented executive order that puts workers back "decades," they said.

The current collective bargaining agreement remains in place until May 22, 2025, said Canada Post, a Crown corporation. They last proposed a 5% wage increase to employees, rejected by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW).

"After two days of hearings, the CIRB has issued its ruling confirming the parties are at an impasse," wrote Canada Post in a statement released Sunday. "As a result, the CIRB has ordered employees to return to work and postal operations to begin to resume at 8 am local time on December 17, 2024."

More than 55,000 workers walked off the job on November 15 after both sides failed to reach a new agreement for better wages, greater pension security and stronger health benefits including gender-affirming care.

"We denounce in the strongest terms this assault on our constitutionally protected right to free and fair collective bargain and our right to strike," wrote CUPW in a statement on Friday. 

MP Matthew Green, the New Democrat labour critic, called the action "a violation of workers' rights." 

Minister MacKinnon issued an executive order, under section 107 of the Labour Code, permitting cabinet to take any action "to maintain or secure industrial peace and promote conditions favourable for the settlement of industrial disputes." He called the order an imaginative solution, reported Blacklock’s.

New Democrats are furious with the governing Liberals, who have forced workers back to work for the fifth time in four months, according to federal records.

"We are reflecting on what we did because we pushed those problems decades along by putting workers back to work without an agreement," MP Brian Masse told the Commons. 

"Postal workers across Canada should know that I and New Democrats stand with them," he said. Party leader Jagmeet Singh has yet to comment on the cabinet order. "There should be no government intervention," he said on November 15. "Stay out of this," he added. "Let the workers bargain [for] their contract."

Singh ended his supply and Confidence agreement with the Liberals after a similar executive order was issued for picketing railway workers in September.

MacKinnon condemned the strike as early as December 4, promising no federal intervention. "It is possible we will have a prolonged labour conflict," he said at the time.

Now he says "Canadians are rightly fed up." Among the affected federal services include delivering 190,000 passports and the mailing of 1.65 million tax notices by the Canada Revenue Agency, Blacklock’s learned.

A similar mail stoppage in 2018 went on for 35 days, prompting the passage of back-to-work legislation. Rotating strikes at the time cost the Crown corporation $110 million. 

Canada Post last turned a profit in 2017, reported Blacklock’s. Subsequent losses to 2023, the most recent available data, totalled a combined $3 billion. 

Without changes to its operating model, Canada Post forecasts larger, more unsustainable losses in future years. It delivered almost 5.5 billion letters in 2006, falling significantly to 2.2 billion last year.

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