Canada Post was set to meet with negotiators from its union Sunday amid warnings of mail delivery delays tied to a national ban on overtime for postal workers.
Sunday’s meeting will be the first of the weekend, a spokesperson for the Crown corporation said.
A mediator will be on hand to work with the parties who have been deadlocked for months in efforts to secure a new collective bargaining agreement.
Canada Post presented its latest offers to the union on Wednesday, which included a hike in pay and plans to roll out a fleet of part-time workers.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has yet to offer a formal response to the proposals, but its request for a two-week “truce” to consider the deal was rejected by the employer.
The most recent agreement between the parties, which was extended by the industrial relations board after Ottawa intervened in the month-long holiday season strike late last year, expired Thursday.
While CUPW issued a 72-hour strike notice earlier in the week that could have seen workers walk off the job first thing on Friday morning, the union instead issued a national ban on taking overtime work while it considered the latest deal.
The union said in a bulletin to members last week that the offers “fall short” on wages and other key sticking points in the negotiations.
Canada Post said the most recent offers reflect its financial realities.
An Industrial Inquiry Commission set up by the federal government found the postal service was effectively “bankrupt” and recommended a series of structural changes in a report released earlier this month.
That included recommendations to phase out daily door-to-door delivery and implement a “dynamic routing” system that could see mail carriers’ routes change on a daily basis.