COST OF LIVING ALLOWANCE
Inflation has been tough this year. Fortunately, we have negotiated a Cost -of- Living Allowance to help members deal with it.
Before we explain the upcoming payment, a brief explanation of an unresolved grievance on the COLA language in our collective agreements.
National Grievance
CUPW filed National Grievance N00-22-00005 for the Urban unit and NOO-22-R0005 for the RSMC on October 11, 2022. Our claim is that the base month for the COLA in the Urban renewal agreement is January 2020, and December 2019 for RSMC and payments should be calculated accordingly. CPC will issue payments calculated from a base month of January 2022 and December 2021, respectively.
Regardless, Canada Post Corporation has confirmed that it will pay the current COLA payments, in amounts according to their position. On that basis, the CPI has recently exceeded the adjusted index for RSMCs and for Urban members.
Amounts for RSMCs
In CPC’s view, the base month for the RSMC COLA in the contract renewal is December 2021. The December 2021 CPI was 144, so the adjusted index for comparison would be 151.7.
The CPI exceeded the adjusted index in May (151.9) and June (152.9). The COLA would equal 0.8625% of all activity values paid for those two months.
For Urban Members
For the Urban unit, the base month – according to CPC’s position – is January 2022, when the CPI was 145.3. The July 2022 CPI is 153.1, which exceeds the adjusted index of 153.0, as per CPC’s interpretation.
So Urban members will be paid a COLA of 1 cent per hour for all hours paid in July 2022.
The payments will come as a lump sum on your November 10, 2022, pay for both bargaining units.
Of course, should CUPW’s National Grievances be upheld, these amounts shall be revised.
In Solidarity,