TORONTO (AP) — Workers at Canada's national postal service are on strike after failing to reach a negotiated agreement with Canada Post.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers said early Friday approximately 55,000 workers are striking, claiming little progress has been made in the bargaining process. The work stoppage will disrupt mail service ahead of the busy holiday season.
The union issued a 72-hour strike notice earlier in the week, saying it’s been asking for fair wages, safer working conditions and other improvements over nearly a year of bargaining.
“We still believe we can achieve negotiated collective agreements, but Canada Post must be willing to resolve our new and outstanding issues,” CUPW said in a statement.
Canada Post served the union with the lockout notice not long after but had said it didn’t intend to lock workers out.
The government corporation released a statement early Friday morning confirming that customers will experience delays. Mail and parcels will not be delivered for the duration of the strike, and some post offices will be closed.
Canada Post says shutting down facilities will affect its national network, with processing and delivery of mail possibly needing time to return to normal once the strike is over.
Ahead of the strike deadline, federal Labor Minister Steven MacKinnon said he formally appointed the director general of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services as a special mediator to help in the talks.
“We are making sure that these two groups have everything they need to reach a deal," he said in a post on X.
FILE -A Canada Post worker walks to his truck on Sept. 26, 2018 in Richmond, British Columbia. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
Wall Street was headed for more losses before the opening bell on Friday and is on track to log its third losing week out of the last four.
Futures for the S&P 500 were 0.5% lower before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4%.
Excluding an election-week boom, stocks have been in a rut most of the past month following a red-hot six-week stretch early this fall. A still-strong economy and some mixed inflation reports in recent weeks have cast some doubt as to whether the Federal Reserve will cut its benchmark rate for the third time in a row when it meets for the final time in 2024 next month.
Lower interest rates can act as fuel for the stock market, and the broad expectation that the Fed was ready to go on a rate-cutting binge put investors in a buying mood.
On Thursday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell suggested the U.S. central bank needs to be cautious about future interest rate decisions. Speaking in Dallas, Powell noted that inflation is edging closer to the central bank’s 2% target, “but it is not there yet.”
“The economy is not sending any signals that we need to be in a hurry to lower rates,” Powell said.
In equities trading, Domino's Pizza and Pool Corp. both jumped around 6% on reports that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway had taken significant positions in the companies. Berkshire also reportedly dumped most of its shares in cosmetics retailer Ulta Beauty, which tumbled 5% after hours.
Investors are also waiting for the latest government data on retail sales, which comes out later Friday morning.
Elsewhere, in Europe at midday, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell a modest 0.1% after data from the Office for National Statistics showed economic growth slowed to 0.1% in the July-September quarter from the 0.5% in the previous quarter. It was below analysts' estimates.
Germany’s DAX was flat and in Paris, the CAC 40 was down 0.1%.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index gained 0.3% to 38,642.91. The yen has been weakening against the U.S. dollar, boosting share prices for exporter like Nissan Motor Co., whose shares jumped 4.5% on Friday.
Japan’s economy grew at a 0.9% annual pace in the July-September quarter, higher than the 0.5% increase in the previous quarter, even as the Bank of Japan raised its key interest rate to 0.25% from 0.1% in July. The BOJ said during its October meeting that it plans to continue increasing rates, with a potential target of 1% in the second half of the next fiscal year, which begins in April, if economic activity and prices develop as expected.
The Hang Seng in Hong Kong slipped 0.1% to 19,426.34 and the Shanghai Composite index dropped 1.5% to 3,330.73 after a report from the National Bureau of Statistics on Friday showed the nation’s retail sales rose 4.8% year-on-year in October, beating forecasts. But industrial output slowed from the previous month and improvements in the property industry were marginal.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.7% to 8,285.20, while South Korea’s Kospi edged 0.1% lower, to 2,416.86.
In other dealings early Friday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 26 to $68.44 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 30 cents to $72.26 per barrel.
The dollar fell to 155.21 Japanese yen from 156.23 yen. The euro edged up to $1.0586 from $1.0534.
Trader Robert Charmak works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Nov. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
People pass the New York Stock Exchange, right, on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)
FILE - Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)
FILE - A person looks at an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
