Mail to resume in Canada this week

OTTAWA, June 26 (UPI) -- Mail delivery will resume in Canada this week after a 53-hour parliamentary filibuster ended and a bill was passed to send 50,000 workers back to their jobs.

The socialist New Democratic Party stalled passage of the Conservative government's bill for days, claiming it didn't give Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers enough time to negotiate their own settlement.

Canada Post locked out workers June 14 after they had staged 12 days of rotating strikes around the country. The post office said the strikes cost at least $100 million in revenue.

The strikes began after seven months of fruitless negotiations on wages and sick leave provisions, Postmedia News said.

The back-to-work legislation was to be taken up Sunday morning by the senate, where the Conservatives also have a majority. Once passed, the bill then must be signed into law by the governor general, meaning postal operations could resume as early as Monday night or Tuesday morning, the report said.