MONTREAL — Some 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers went on strike across Canada Nov. 15, fighting for better wages and livable work conditions. Negotiations have dragged on since Nov. 15, 2023. “Canada Post left us no choice when it threatened to change our working conditions and leave our members exposed to layoffs,” the union said.
One key issue is Canada Post’s plan to hire part-time employees to deliver parcels on weekends. This would create a two-tier system, with new workers earning less and having fewer benefits. Right now Canada Post has to employ full-time workers and pay them double time for this work. “They are trying to create a two-tiered system of compensation,” CUPW National President Jan Simpson told the Globe and Mail.
After workers have suffered years of ravaging price hikes the employers are offering a miserly 11.5% wage increase over four years. The union is demanding 24%. This also includes catch-up for low wage increases in the past. The union is also defending the defined-benefit pension plan its members have now, while the bosses want to switch to a separate plan for new employees that doesn’t guarantee what workers will actually get.
On Nov. 16 this Militant worker-correspondent visited a picket line at the huge Canada Post Distribution center, where 3,000 workers are employed. Workers described how supervisors spy on letter carriers on their routes, writing them up for the slightest infraction. After being written up three times they can be fired. Roxane Gale, a postal union representative who works as a clerk, told me they are fighting to defend all the workers. “We are fighting for the retired, the young, the current workers. We need to recognize the fights that went on before.”
The Teamsters who organize Purolator, a major delivery service in Canada, announced that in solidarity with the postal workers they will not handle packages from Canada Post.
The bosses and their backers in the government have been carrying out a concerted campaign in the media against the workers. Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said the strike is “really bad timing” for small businesses. Santo Ligotti from the Retail Council of Canada said the work stoppage “couldn’t come at a worse time” with the retail supply chain “taking a beating” after recent rail and port labor actions. “Not to mention Christmas and Black Friday are just around the corner.”
Both the rail workers and port workers were ordered back to work under the notorious Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, which allows the government to order “essential” workers back to work and impose binding arbitration.
Mark Lubinski, president of the postal workers local in Toronto, told CBC, “The climate seems to be that Canada Post and other employers are waiting for the government to legislate us back to work.” The government did that in 2011 and 2018.
Defense of the right to strike is at the heart of this fight. Solidarity is in the interests of all working people.