Vol. 78/No. 6      February 17, 2014

Over a five-year period starting later this year the cuts would replace door-to-door delivery with so-called community mail boxes and lay off 6,000 to 8,000 workers. On March 1, the cost of a first class stamp will rise from 63 to 85 cents.

The action took place on the eve of the opening of the next session of Canada’s Parliament. The Conservative Party government fully backs the decision of Canada Post officials.

Workers arrived in buses from across Quebec and Ontario. “In defense of the public postal service” was the main demand displayed on placards and buttons.

“Demonstrating is the only way we have to show the whole population that we won’t go backwards,” Jean Maxime Dugat, a Montreal letter carrier and CUPW shop steward with 14 years on the job, told the Militant. “If we don’t stand up and say ‘no’ our kids won’t have what we fought for and won.”

Delegations from the United Steelworkers, Unifor, and the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario carried the flags of their unions. Municipal workers from Montreal lent their sound truck to head the one-mile march to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office near Parliament.

Speakers at the rally included CUPW officials, the president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, New Democratic Party members of Parliament, leaders of seniors’ organizations and others.

“There is so much opposition to the government on this, I don’t think they can get away with it,” veteran Montreal letter carrier Yves Delva told the Militant.

The attacks against the postal workers and the postal service are part of an overall assault on workers employed by government-run corporations, including Crown, Via Rail, Canada Post and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as well as federal government workers whose union contracts expire in 2015.

“We know what it’s like to be under attack and are here to support the postal workers under attack from the federal government,” Peter Giuliani, president of the Ottawa Local of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, told the Militant.

In June 2011, Parliament passed a law that made it illegal for postal workers to strike and imposed a four-year contract, ordering 48,000 workers back to work after CUPW carried out two weeks of rotating strikes against concession demands and a retaliatory lockout.

Following Ottawa’s strikebreaking action, Canada Post imposed changes, boosting “productivity.” “There are more parcels so the workload is heavier, the work is more physical,” said letter carrier Andre Daoust. “The workday is longer, often 10 hours. When you finish in the dark, you’re tired. The risks of an accident are a lot higher.”

Canada Post CEO Deepak Chopra said at a Dec. 18 meeting of a Parliament committee that forcing people to go to a central location to get their mail would be good for the elderly by giving them more exercise. “The seniors are telling me, ‘I want to be healthy. I want to be active in my life,’” he said.

Rallies, town hall meetings, forums, petitions and other activities against the cuts have been taking place in many communities.

“The end of home delivery will have a big impact on older people,” Montreal mail clerk Ivan Contreras told the Militant in answer to Chopra. “At the postal outlet where I work some are coming in really worried, almost crying saying they don’t know what they will do.”

“This demonstration is just the beginning of a campaign that will last for months,” letter carrier Claude Mercier with 30 years on the job told the Militant. “We hope to involve others in this fight because it affects millions.”

The next day CUPW organized on-the-job and community protests across Canada.
 
 
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