Members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers rallied Thursday outside the Almon Street Canada Post sorting facility in Halifax in anticipation of an upcoming strike. The workers were there to demonstrate their continued willingness to struggle five months after being forced off the picket lines by the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB).
The strike could start as early as tomorrow. The renewed conflict comes after the “cooling-off” period arbitrarily imposed on the workers by the CIRB and also in the wake of a recently released report by the Industrial Inquiry Commission (IIC).
The report recommends that Canada Post stop all daily residential mail delivery. This would effectively cut thousands of letter-carrier jobs. The report also props up the false narrative of Canada Post insolvency while downplaying corporate mismanagement that postal workers have long pointed out.
The workers at the rally demonstrated their resolve to not only fight back against these recommendations but to continue to fight for the gains they were aiming for with their original strike action. “We had contract demands we still support. And they are still willing to fight. We don't want to strike but we will if we have to,” said Nova Local President Dwayne Corner.
Attacks on Workers Rights From Coast to Coast
“It's a violation of our constitutional rights,” said Corner of the back-to-work order and subsequent IIC report. “It's the government stepping in and interfering with the workers' right to collective bargaining.”
“If unionized workers are being disadvantaged at this point, then we will see that workers' rights in general will deteriorate even further”, added Corner.
Indeed, governments appear to have no qualms about stepping in to crush workers' struggles lately. In August of 2024, the CIRB ordered over 9,000 rail workers back to work after less than 24 hours on the picket line. Later in the year, longshoremen in Montreal, Quebec City and Vancouver also received back-to-work orders.
On the other hand, federal and provincial governments have sat back and done nothing to stop Amazon from closing all of its Quebec warehouses and putting some 4,500 workers on the street when it was on the verge of being forced to sign a collective agreement with the unionized DTX4 warehouse in Laval.
“If we allow this to continue, it's gonna pretty well lead to workers' rights being null and void. You're gonna see the future workers not being able to have full-time jobs with benefits, pensions and all that, all the securities we've gained over the years. If we don't start doing something we're going to see workers' rights deteriorate even further,” remarked Corner.
“Unionized workers need to stand together if they see unions like ours or the port workers or the rail workers that were going through the same treatment that we were [to show] that they stand together. And non-unionized workers, they should try and get organized. By getting organized that's how you make gains for yourselves and your co-workers. And even if they're not yet unionized, they can still come out and support the unionized workers in this fight.”