Last week, the federal government sided with Canada Post’s CEO by imposing a vote on a contract offer that the union had already rejected. It’s been 18 months since the Crown corporation started dragging its feet in negotiations for a new collective agreement. In response, postal workers have been on an overtime strike since May 23.
This offer had been called “final” by Canada Post, confirming their refusal to continue negotiations. On May 30, high-level Canada Post bureaucrats asked Minister of Jobs and Families Patty Hajdu to force a vote. In response, the union had proposed binding arbitration, a process that would see a third party impose a contract on both sides. That proposal was rejected. Canada Post justified its refusal by saying that “arbitration would be long and complicated.”
The union stated that the Crown corporation wants “to impose its own terms, through government processes, effectively gutting and rewriting our collective agreements by themselves.”
Contract negotiations have broken down over several issues, including pay, benefits, and pensions. Among other things, Canada Post wants to hire part-time workers for weekend deliveries. The union, for its part, is calling for the creation of full-time jobs or proper overtime pay.
Matthew, a postal worker from London, told The North Star that Canada Post wants “to fundamentally change our job to reduce the stability that we hold.” All of this shows, he says, that “the government isn't representing the working class, only the corporate class.”
On May 31, postal workers demonstrated against the forced vote across the country, including in Ottawa. Rallies took place in several cities, with signs reading “Hands Off My Post Office.”
Canada Post’s most recent financial report shows $1.3 billion in operating losses. But CUPW members say the corporation is using those losses as an excuse to avoid negotiating seriously.
As The North Star has previously reported, a large part of these losses are tied to infrastructure investments. These expenses are normally amortized over time and not included in annual losses.
Canada Post is also using this deficit to push for the “Amazonification” of its services, a move that several groups have already denounced. The government report on the Crown corporation, tabled on May 15, states: “Canada Post is facing an existential crisis: It is effectively insolvent, or bankrupt. Without thoughtful, measured, staged, but immediate changes, its fiscal situation will continue to deteriorate.”
It’s also important to note that Canada Post is one of the only “public services” the government requires to be profitable.
Workers targeted to cut costs
“[Canada Post] refuse to acknowledge that the wages aren't keeping up with inflation, and they refuse to take accountability for the poor money management of the company. They're taking it off the backs of the workers and that ain't right,” said Lina McLean, CUPW’s Regional Education and Organization Officer, in an interview with The North Star.
Mark Platt, a member of CUPW’s National Executive Board, described how letter carriers’ working conditions have deteriorated due to the growing number of addresses and parcels they’re required to deliver: “They’re very good at it, but nobody can walk 30 kilometres a day. And you have people that sit in offices that push pencils that think, ‘So what if you run the workers into the ground and injure them?’”
Platt said injuries are serious and long-lasting for many letter carriers. “We're the second most injured federally regulated industry in the country, and corporations don't care. They just dispose of us, and they just dump us, and they think, ‘Well, you're just lucky to have a job.’”
Lina McLean called for unity: “It sounds like all the cards are really in Canada Post's, and in turn, in the state's hands. The labour movement's got to band together, and they've got to stay united. They've got to rally and go to the government and say, ‘Hey, enough's enough.’ Stop these powerful giants from kicking the shit out of labour and workers' rights.”
Last December, postal workers were forced back to work by government legislation. According to CUPW’s Lina McLean, this legal move “feels like cheating, denying the right to collective bargaining by being forced back to work.”