Canada Post says mail should begin trickling into homes and businesses Tuesday, though postal workers will be sorting through a major backlog of mail for the next few days.
Some 48,000 urban postal workers are back at work and must sort through the mail that built up during the labour disruptions over the past month at Canada Post.
The Crown corporation is warning that it may take "some time" to get the mail running smoothly again.
"It is going to take some time overall to stabilize the system, get it back up to full capacity and ensure we can meet our delivery standards," Canada Post spokesperson Jon Hamilton said Monday.
The postal workers had begun a series of rotating strikes on June 3, after they were unable to come to an agreement on a new contract with Canada Post.
Eleven days later the post office locked out its workers, which prompted Labour Minister Lisa Raitt to threaten back-to-work legislation if the two sides couldn't work out a deal.
With no progress on the horizon, the back-to-work legislation was tabled in the House of Commons on June 20. But it didn't get passed into law until the weekend, after the NDP used a filibuster to hold up its journey through the House.
Postal workers who returned to work on Monday afternoon began sorting through the mail that has been piling up since the lockout.
While many workers are happy to be getting a paycheque again, the union is displeased that the government used legislation to end the labour dispute.
The government legislation has forced the postal workers to accept wages below what Canada Post included in its final offer to the union. And the two sides will also have to submit final offers on non-wage issues that will be decided on by an arbitrator.
Postal workers staged protests across the country yesterday before returning to work, signalling their frustration with the way Ottawa handled the situation.
George Floresco, the third national vice-president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, said the legislation was "all favoured towards Canada Post management and it's not going to be good for us."
With files from The Canadian Press
