Thursday February 3 2022
On January 18, the second arbitration hearing was held on the merit of our grievance against Canada Post Corporation’s (CPC) mandatory vaccination practice.
On January 10, we filed all our evidence in 10 affidavits. One affidavit was from the undersigned, one from our expert witness, one from our National President, Jan Simpson, and there are seven other affidavits from members who have experienced hardship because of the vaccination practice.
At the latest hearing, CPC’s lawyer cross-examined me for a little over three hours about my affidavit and four CUPW bulletins published during the pandemic. Much of the cross-examination concerned descriptions of our members work and outbreaks in CPC’s facilities, with emphasis on the outbreaks at the Gateway facility in Mississauga at the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021.
We received CPC’s material (affidavits and expert report) on January 24, 2022, including four affidavits, and over 700 pages of supporting documents.
The next steps are for both parties to cross-examine each other’s expert witnesses. CPC has indicated that they do not intend to cross-examine our other witnesses. We also plan to cross-examine some of CPC’s other witnesses. We may also decide to introduce rebuttal evidence responding to the Corporation’s evidence.
Our next scheduled hearing dates are February 12, March 21 and 22, 2022. We will work to secure other dates. We will update you on further hearings as soon as we can.
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In Solidarity,