Another labour dispute with local repercussions involves the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), and could use your support in conversations with your family, friends, and neighbours. Today (Tuesday), Canada Post served notice that it plans to drive fifty thousand Canadian workers out onto the streets without pay in its efforts to get them to impose steep concessions on them.
Canada Post is celebrating almost two decades of profits by trying to extract more concessions from the workers who have made it profitable. The crown corporation is refusing to address the glaring discrepancy between rural and urban mail carriers (the predominantly female rural mail carriers earn 28% less than their urban counterparts, and CUPW is calling for pay equity for all their members). It is also seeking to divide present and future postal workers by proposing much lower wages and benefits for all new hires.
CUPW is more than prepared to be flexible and has been actively proposing ways for Canada Post to adapt to changing times and changing needs. Their proposals for a postal service that expands banking to rural communities, finances green energy, provides in-home services for seniors, and more are a model for what public services should look like in our times (see deliveringcommunitypower.ca for a description of their vision). But it looks like Canada Post managers are not interested, and are instead resorting to heavy-handed demands designed to force a labour conflict.
To download a poster for your window click on this link, and share it on social media to demonstrate your support for postal workers! See cupw.ca for the latest updates on the situation.