Local CUPW workers ready to defy back-to-work order
By Lethbridge Herald on December 16, 2024.
Cole Morgan, chief shop steward of Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 770, stands on the picket line with other union members on Monday in front of the downtown Post Office.
Herald photo by Toyin ObatusinToyin Obatusin – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Canada’s postal workers have been ordered by the Canada Industrial Relations Board to get back on the job starting today after spending more than four weeks on strike.
But whether Lethbridge workers join others among the 55,000 striking Canadian Union of Postal Workers, is not yet known.
Cole Morgan, chief shop steward of Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 770, said Monday when asked if local Canada Post employees would be back on the job today, “that is a possibility, but that remains to be seen. We’re kind of waiting to see what the leadership has to say, but a lot of members are ready to defy if they need to.”
After two days of deliberations, the CIRB ordered employees to return to work and postal operations to begin to resume at 8 a.m. local time today.
Canada Post is warning Lethbridge mail recipients of delays due to parcels that have not been delivered since the beginning of the strike.
There will be no receiving or pick-up of new products until Thursday if strikers go back to work.
Postal workers gathered in front of the downtown post office on Monday still awaiting a response from the CUPW national executive board, with a lot of unhappiness, said Morgan.
Canada Post in a media statement Monday afternoon said its focus is on stabilizing operations “to return reliable service to Canadians and businesses.”
It stated that Canada Post on a first-in, first-out basis will start working through mail and parcels that have been in the system since the strike began on Nov. 15.
There will be no service guarantees as the corporation ramps up service and Canadians are being told they should expect delays for the rest of this month and into January.
The service will start accepting new international mail on Dec. 23.
Collective agreements between Canada Post and CUPW for the rural and suburban mail carriers unit expired on Dec. 31, 2023 and on Jan. 31 for the urban unit.
On Monday, CUPW on its website called the CIRB decision “disappointing to say the least for CUPW and all of our members who made sacrifices to fight for what is right and our rights to negotiate improvements to our working conditions. CUPW will still challenge the constitutionality and the current application of section 107 by the Minister of Labour.
Those challenges will be heard by the CIRB on Jan. 13-14.
16-15
If this corporation was in the private sector and not a Crown corporation, it would have been dissolved long ago!
It has lost $3 Billion since 2018! Now it is going to lose even more because of increased labour costs, so it is time to call it what it is, a money pit, and dissolve it!
This strike impacted Canadians at a time when many were beaten down by high cost of living impacts and it was punch in the face to many of us!
“If the government listened to postal workers, they could be implementing win-win measures that create secure meaningful jobs as well as address the crises of affordability, isolation, and climate breakdown”
“While the postal service is indeed threatened by a digital crisis, its purpose has in fact barely been realized.
Few people stop to think that there are actually twice as many post offices as Tim Hortons, making it a retail network unlike any other in the country. Working with this understanding, eight years ago the postal workers put forward Delivering Community Power, a comprehensive plan to transform Canada Post into a vibrant 21st century public service.”
“For years before the launch of the Delivering Community Power campaign, postal workers have been advocating for postal banking, and put together a broad coalition to back it. Banking services were part of Canada Post’s offer until 1968, when commercial banks successfully lobbied the crown corporation to drop it.
Anti-poverty groups like ACORN backed the bank as an alternative to predatory payday lenders, while rural communities saw it as a way to get services to residents where local branches closed decades ago—despite outsized bank profits.”
https://breachmedia.ca/government-is-suppressing-postal-workers-it-should-be-learning-from-their-innovative-ideas/