DHL stops deliveries in Canada amid strike, new law banning replacement workers

DHL Express Canada stopped delivery service across the country Friday as workers continue to strike and new federal legislation banning replacement workers comes into effect.

More than 2,000 DHL workers represented by Unifor — including truck drivers, couriers and warehouse and call centre employees — have been on strike since June 8 after the German-owned delivery company locked them out following a breakdown in negotiations with the union. 

DHL has tied the shutdown to the stalled negotiations as well as a new federal law barring replacement workers from filling the role of federally regulated employees who are on strike or locked out. 

Unifor has said its bargaining priorities with DHL revolve around wages, working conditions and surveillance and automation in the workplace.

Unifor representative Balkar Bains, who was on the picket line in Brampton Friday, said the new legislation has "empowered unions to be able to have fair bargaining."

"Unfortunately, DHL is disregarding that."

DHL, whose 50,000 customers in Canada include Lululemon, Shein and Siemens, continued operations for the first dozen days of the work stoppage but began to wind down earlier this week as the legislation loomed. 

Unifor president Lana Payne says the company had brought in replacement workers — a claim DHL has not denied — in a move she says was legal at the time but undermined negotiations for fair wages.

Minister of jobs and families Patty Hajdu said on Friday she will not allow DHL to continue operating despite the ban.

"The best deals are the ones the parties reach themselves and the Government of Canada is encouraging the parties to put their best foot forward and get this done," Hajdu's spokeperson Jennifer Kozelj said in a statement. 

DHL had written to Ottawa earlier this week seeking permission to keep operating, arguing the company provided an essential service. In response, Unifor wrote to Prime Minister Mark Carney, asking that the federal government not intervene, saying it would remove the employer's incentive to negotiate and settle a fair contract.

DHL has not responded to CBC's request for comment.

Stoppage affecting business, customers

The DHL delivery stoppage comes at a time of turmoil for parcel delivery in Canada, as Canada Post remains at loggerheads with the union that represents 55,000 of its workers.

That, along with the ongoing trade war between the United States and Canada, has been costly for Holly Rockbrune, who owns an antique store in Pickering, Ont. She says about 70 per cent of her clients are American.

"We're constantly having to update how we handle things," Rockbrune said this week. "All of these shipping issues combined really just make things very difficult to run a business." 

She says she's had to start using smaller, private shipping companies that are sometimes twice as costly as DHL in order to keep her customers.

"Our orders are down, our order numbers are down, the values are down," she said. 

The DHL strike and shutdown has also already caused problems for customers, like Prateek Mahajan, who says he and his fiancée were supposed to get their wedding clothes delivered Friday. He was at the company's Brampton warehouse in the morning in hopes they'd arrived, but he says DHL wouldn't help him.

"It's my wedding tomorrow morning," he said. "They are not entertaining me at all. It's horrible."