Photo: The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Canada Post’s latest contract offers to its workers has positives but not enough to put an end to rotating walkouts that are causing mail and parcel delivery delays across the country, the head of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers said Thursday after reviewing the lengthy proposals.

And CUPW national president Mike Palecek won’t say whether tentative deals can be reached before a Saturday deadline imposed by Canada Post.

“After a year at the bargaining table, it looks like Canada Post is ready to start negotiating,” Palecek said. “That being said, these offers don’t address our core issues.”

What the union needs are concrete proposals for dealing with an escalating number of work injuries at Canada Post and not processes designed to punt worker health and safety concerns down the road, said Palecek.

“We have an injury crisis on our hands. (Canada Post) finally acknowledged that,” he said. “But they can’t just kick these problems off to a committee and pretend they’re going to do something about it.”

The union has cited Labour Canada reports, which have placed postal employees ahead of longshore, transportation and mining workers in reporting disabling workplace injuries, at a rate more than five times the rest of the federally regulated job sector.

Canada Post, in its latest offers to both urban and rural and suburban employees, has proposed a $10-million fund to pay for “jointly identified initiatives” to speed up improvements to the Crown agency’s safety record and to reduce workplace injuries.

The money was included in what Canada Post calls “time-limited” offers tabled Wednesday, aimed at ending rotating strikes that have created a historic backlog of undelivered parcels.

The walkouts continued Thursday at processing plants in Montreal and Winnipeg, as well as at smaller locations in Ontario, British Columbia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador.