CPC(M-L) HOME TML Daily Archive Le Marxiste-Léniniste quotidien

June 13, 2011 - No. 97

Postal Workers Continue Rotating Strikes

Oppose Canada Post's Attempts to Blame
Postal Workers for Its Own Disruption in Service


Postal workers and supporters from the emergency services workers in Red Deer, Alberta
during the 48-hour walkout that began on June 10, 2011.

Postal Workers Continue Rotating Strikes
Oppose Canada Post's Attempts to Blame Postal Workers for Its Own Disruption in Service
Calgary and Edmonton Postal Workers Speak Out for Rights, Dignity and Public Postal Services

BC HST Referendum and the Necessity for a Modern Tax System
Vancouver Public Meeting on HST
Defeat the HST Poll Tax! - Barbara Biley


Postal Workers Continue Rotating Strikes

Oppose Canada Post's Attempts to Blame
Postal Workers for Its Own Disruption in Service

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) is continuing its rotating strikes in opposition to attempts to force workers to accept concessions which negate their rights, step up the exploitation of their labour and seek to wreck the public postal service. Ten locals are presently holding 24-hour strike actions in Breton, NS; Fredericton, NB; Mauricie, QC; Sherbrooke, QC; Corner Brook, NL; Cornwall, ON; Windsor, ON; Niagara Falls; ON; Regina, SK and Nanaimo, BC. The Red Deer, AB local returned to work last night after a 48-hour walkout. CUPW reports that on June 10 and 11, meetings between both chief negotiators and the mediator continued, with discussions on work methods for mail couriers and letter carriers, amongst other issues.



Bathurst/Acadie, New Brunswick (top); Charlottetown, PEI, June 9, 2011

Rather than showing good faith by accepting the offer of CUPW to return to work in exchange for recognizing the current collective agreement while negotiations carry on, Canada Post has shown that it is to blame for the disruption of mail services across the country.

On June 8, Canada Post announced that it was immediately reducing service, claiming mail volume had decreased. It arbitrarily reduced delivery of mail by letter carriers by 40 percent, i.e., only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Staffing levels at mail processing plants across the country have also been reduced. Postal workers report that mail is in fact piling up in the plants. Canada Post's announcement also covers up that service delays and backlogs were being caused well before the strike by its "Modern Post" initiative, and that the untenable working conditions introduced by the "Modern Post" is one of the reasons for the workers having to go on strike.

At a June 13 press conference, CUPW's National President and Chief Negotiator Denis Lemelin pointed out that, "Canada Post is doing everything it can to provoke the union into a national walkout in the hope that the government will intervene."

"They are not interested in negotiating with us to end this strike. They want to force postal workers to take concessions," said Lemelin. "To that end, they are suspending postal service across the country, even where no picket lines are up."

It is clear that Canada Post has another agenda as it has rejected CUPW's offer to suspend the rotating strikes, provided that the expired collective agreement is reinstated.

Calling Canada Post's recent announcement that service will be reduced to three days a week a "partial lockout," Lemelin urged the media and the public to get all the facts. He decried that Canada Post's reduction in services is having a far greater impact than anything the union has done so far and that service is being reduced despite mail piling up in the plants.

TML denounces the intransigence and scheming of Canada Post. Canadians need to speak up against these attempts to undermine the just struggle of the postal workers which defends their own rights as well as the public post service.



Labrador City/Wabush, Newfoundland (top); Thunder Bay, Ontario, June 9, 2011; Kitchener, Ontario, June 10, 2011

Return to top


Calgary and Edmonton Postal Workers Speak Out for Rights, Dignity and Public Postal Services

Postal workers in Calgary and Edmonton were out on June 8 as the rotating strikes continue. TML spoke with workers on the line. The workers pointed out that their strong picket lines at the processing plants in both cities as well as the letter carrier depots received solid support despite the barrage of disinformation about their fight to defend the public post and rights of postal workers. Not only was there non-stop honking of horns, but letter carriers reported many people on their routes gave encouragement in the preceding days.

They pointed out that for Canada Post to speak about creating a "modern post" with their anti-worker attacks and assaults on services Canadians depend on is totally absurd. Canada Post, they said, speaks about declining mail volumes with the increased use of electronic means of communication as a reason to attack service and the workers who create value. Why should Canada Post not provide all the modern means of communication, as well as other services Canadians need like banking as it used to do, they asked. Why should new means of communication be in the hands of the private monopolies? It would be much better for Canadians if these services were public. They pointed out that the staffing situation has been deteriorating for several years with routes not covered and the obligation to provide daily mail service not fulfilled, while Canada Post makes profits every year. Furthermore, the Harper government deprived Canada Post of revenues in order to benefit the private international remailers, and now it wants to make postal workers pay and reduce service to Canadians.

Several workers made the point that they have a right to their claim for wages and working conditions as they are the ones who create wealth. How ridiculous that the rich who are taking more and more from the society are attacking the modest wages of the workers, demanding that they give up such "extravagances" as sick leave and their own health and safety and betray their responsibility to the next generation. What kind of collective would sell out the workers not yet hired, they asked.


Calgary, June 7, 2011

What the Calgary Workers Had to Say

Anna Beale, President, Calgary Local: We want Canada Post to address our demands. They are totally focused on their own agenda and are refusing to address our concerns. Work injuries and health and safety are big issues for us. In Winnipeg where the new machines were introduced affecting the method of delivery the injury rate went up by 50 per cent. Another big issue is staffing. The company has cut the number of inside workers in half in the last two years. They are not staffing vacant routes properly and letter carriers are forced to work overtime, with the employer refusing to find alternative ways covered by our contract to staff these routes. Recently temporary workers who provide vacant route coverage as needed were sent home, and thirty-seven routes were not staffed. They have now announced that starting next week they will be delivering three days a week. They are supposed to provide delivery five days a week. You would think that a corporation that is providing a public service would respect the workers who are doing the job and making the profits for them but this company is refusing to respect its employees, has now declared war on its employees and they are causing a deterioration in the service it provides to Canadians.

Robert Scobel, Picket Captain: One of the critical issues for me is something pretty basic. It is the survival of the post office. What we are dealing with here is an opportunity for Canada Post to provide an expanded public postal service well into this century or the demise of our public post office. I am very concerned about the quality of our wages and benefits and the sanctity of our pensions, health and safety and working conditions. These are fundamental. But I am very concerned that Harper's agenda is to dismantle Canada Post as an effective public deliverer of mail, because, quite frankly, as much as Mr. Harper wants us to believe he is governing from the centre he does not believe in or support the importance of public services to the economy and the people.

We have to fight for public services. Today with Canada Post's announcement that they are going to three day service, using their corporate business rationale, they are making a choice to partially shut postal delivery service down. The union by contrast is, in a disciplined way, holding rotating strikes in specific communities and minimizing disruption of services to Canadians and now Canada Post is suspending services for 40 per cent of the week. If a letter carrier refused to deliver they would be fired. When Canada Post suspends delivery they act like it's the natural thing to do. It's not acceptable.

Don Svercek, Picket Captain and Shop Steward: I think this contract will set the tone for the next ten or fifteen years because we are going through a period of modernization -- new machines, new delivery methods. In a time when we have an opportunity to re-make Canada Post better the company is basically looking at making it worse. They are only focusing on money. Simplistically stated, if they focused on service, the money would take care of itself, but because they have been given the mandate to run it as a capitalist enterprise, they only focus on money and service suffers. An indication of how important public postal services are to Canadians is the support we have been getting as we walk the line. So many people wave and honk their horns. I think we are getting such a positive response due to the fact that we are out here standing up for our rights and for public services because people feel a certain sense of powerlessness and lack of control over their lives and they are happy to see a group of workers fighting for what is right. If you believe the media we are overpaid, under worked, that we get too many holidays and we should suck it up but I think the average Canadian fully understands the importance of this. I always go back to the last federal election and sixty per cent of Canadians did not vote for Harper. I think at least sixty per cent of Canadians understand the value of the post office.

Postal Worker: Proper staffing is a big issue as is the level of injuries on the job. Canada Post will not hire enough people to do the job properly but they want the job done 100 per cent. The injuries are up because of the work load and that is due to improper staffing.

Postal Worker: As postal workers we stand for equal public postal service for all Canadians. If you are in a small community you really rely on the post office. I have friends who live in rural Alberta and my parents live in a small community in Saskatchewan. If they lost their post office they would have to drive to larger communities or the city to send or receive their mail.That would create serious hardships and violate the mandate for postal services. Canada Post is going backward in time by cutting staff and therefore harming service.

Postal Worker: Our union has a vision that public postal services should be expanded and I support that vision. Doing so will provide better postal service to Canadians. It will provide more jobs and can only help the economy. That is why our union is fighting for wages and improving the quality of our work life and addressing our health and safety concerns.There is a connection between the quality of our work life and the level of service we can provide. Cutting back on our wages and paying less, the deterioration of our wages, benefits and working conditions is a race to the bottom and is preparation for privatizing Canada Post. It is not good for the economy. Expanding services is good for the economy.

Return to top


BC HST Referendum and the Necessity for a Modern Tax System

Vancouver Public Meeting on HST

In Vancouver on June 9, a meeting was held at the Round House Community Centre on why BC citizens should vote Yes to extinguish the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) and why working people must put forward their own plan for a modern tax system based on the socialized economy. The meeting was chaired by Charles Boylan, MLPC worker politician.

The meeting began with panel presentations. Peter Ewart, a writer and researcher from Prince George, reviewed how the HST was imposed by the Campbell government contrary to its election promises. The big corporations and banks have been pushing for taxes based on individual payment at the point of consumption, he said, such as the PST, GST and now the HST. Personal taxes, like income tax and increasing numbers of surcharges and fees, form an over-all offensive of the owners of big capital to pass the economic crisis more and more onto workers and middle strata, freeing the corporations from financing social programs. He compared the HST to the Value Added Tax (VAT) in Europe where governments can turn up the tax rate like a radio dial and in some countries the VAT is now 25 per cent.

Tim Louis, a former Vancouver city councillor, said the capitalists are adroit at floating political parties that have progressive rhetoric but do the same thing as open parties of reaction. He cited the Vision Party in Vancouver which has shifted about $15 million in property taxes from the banks and other real estate development businesses onto ordinary home owners and tenants. He said that in the former socialist countries and Cuba, there were or are no direct taxes on income or consumer goods, with enterprises expected to pay for social services like health care, education and social housing.

Donna Petersen, MLPC worker politician, emphasized that Canada has an interconnected socialized economy. Discussion of modern taxation, she said, must analyze the aggregate social product produced and government claims to provide social necessities must be paid to governments socially, not individually. She argued for a modern accounting system where workers would have a detailed knowledge of production costs, the funds to be forwarded to the government to meet social needs, the workers' personal needs in wages, funds required for re-investing in production and the capitalists' share which would be limited to an established national average rate of profit.

Boylan emphasized that in BC the financial oligarchy is interested only in exporting raw materials, either directly through the export of raw logs, water, oil and gas, or by acting as a transportation corridor for raw materials such as the proposed Enbridge pipeline from the oil sands in Alberta to Kitimat. If taxation to meet the society's needs for social programs were extracted at the point of production, he said, this would raise the consciousness that Vancouver and BC require major manufacturing development to ensure increased production of the social wealth necessary to maintain and expand social programs.

Members of the audience raised many relevant points. One linked the HST to the ongoing assault by the rich against the workers and poor. Three Native participants emphasized that First Nations have legal claim to the land in BC and said a united front of workers and Native people needs to be forged to head off the monopolies' plundering of resources and taxing of people into impoverishment. Several spoke of the need to ensure citizens understand that voting yes to extinguish the HST is a first step. Others said this small success against the multi-million dollar advertising campaign of lies and manipulation would give the people confidence to further develop their opposition to the rich.

A small business person from North Vancouver, who ran as a Conservative candidate in the last provincial election, spoke passionately about how the HST seriously undermines small retail outlets and called on everyone to work hard to pass the referendum to extinguish it. Two workers from Venezuela spoke of how their government uses the wealth produced from its oil assets to provide social programs, and how it is using its natural wealth to expand agriculture and manufacturing in their nation-building project. A worker from Scotland noted that the VAT there is now 20 per cent and is folded into the final price, so people are never reminded how much consumer tax they pay.

Before the meeting adjourned, the chair introduced a resolution. It calls on the people to vote Yes to extinguish the HST during the referendum, June 13 to June 27; to oppose consumer-based taxes in general; to discuss broadly the need for a modern tax system including the idea of taxing at the enterprise level; to work for new co-operation and joint action with Indigenous nations in defense of their rightful claims to the land to develop an alternative vision for a sustainable economy based on processing natural resources to meet BC's needs; and that participants in the meeting organize meetings with co-workers, neighbours and others to further the discussion on the HST and taxation. The resolution was passed unanimously.

Return to top


Defeat the HST Poll Tax!

From June 13 to July 22, 2011, electors in British Columbia will vote in a referendum on the Harmonized Sales Tax which has been in effect since July 1, 2010. Ballots will be mailed starting June 13 and must be returned by July 22.

The referendum question, as determined by Elections BC, is "Are you in favour of extinguishing the HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) and reinstating the PST (Provincial Sales Tax) in conjunction with the GST (Goods and Services Tax)? Yes or No." The referendum is being conducted in response to an anti-HST petition signed by over 700,000 registered voters. The HST was announced by the Campbell Liberal government following a $1.6 billion offer from the Harper Conservative government and less than two months after the May 2009 provincial election in which the Liberal Party said that it was not considering implementing the HST. Under intense public pressure which forced his resignation, Liberal leader Gordon Campbell agreed to a referendum on the HST.

Both the referendum question, which implies that there are no other options but the HST or the prior PST and GST, and the so-called democratic process that the provincial government has put in place, are designed to obscure the fundamental issues and ensure the failure of the referendum both in content and in spirit. The government says that it is spending $1.7 million on the referendum. Of this, $500,000 is to be shared equally between the official "yes" and "no" committees. Another $500,000 goes to a "public dialogue fund" to be "independently" managed by BC universities and colleges to hold "public dialogue sessions" throughout the province. Another $700,000 will be used to produce a "comprehensive voters' guide" to summarize the positions of the pro and anti-HST sides and to sum up the findings of the government-initiated "independent panel." On top of this allegedly neutral activity, the government will be spending an undisclosed amount of public funds to promote its own pro-HST advertising campaign. All this activity is geared to ensuring that monopoly right is upheld, albeit with a veneer of "voter participation."

Stepped up Anti-Social Offensive

The HST represents another step in the anti-social offensive against the working class and people. The HST combines the five per cent federal GST and the seven per cent provincial PST and, at the same time, extends PST onto many more consumer goods than were previously taxed. It also shifts the PST previously claimed from businesses to a point of sale tax paid by the consumer. This will reduce business taxes by about 40 per cent or $1.9 billion per year. According to the website www.hstinbc.ca which was established by the government to promote the HST, the annual savings for industry include $80 million for the mining, oil and gas sector, $140 million for manufacturing, $140 million for forestry, $210 million for transportation and $880 million for the construction industry, who will recover all the PST paid on purchases of equipment and materials. According to the government this will benefit the economy because "Businesses can use these savings to invest in their operations, hire more workers, or pass savings on to consumers." Lower taxes, argue the representatives of the rich like the Fraser Institute, will both encourage businesses to invest in BC and result in lower prices to consumers because the previous PST paid by corporations was passed on to consumers in prices. Although the HST has been in effect since July 1, 2010 no such reduction has taken place.

Within the narrow choice of yes and no in the referendum, a Yes choice would represent a sound rejection of the anti-social offensive and government pay-the-rich schemes. It would not mean that people agree to personal taxation while the rich get off scott free, as the government might interpret. The government is already showing its anti-people nature by declaring that if the HST is rejected, it will not reverse the extension of the PST to bicycles, haircuts, parking, confections, prepared and restaurant food including take-out and deli, pet food, camp grounds, hotels, new homes, veterinary supplies, tickets to a professional performance or competition, magazine subscriptions, non-credit course fees etc. that were implemented with the introduction of the HST, will be maintained. This is what the new Minister of Finance Kevin Falcon already implied.

Voting Yes to reject the HST in the referendum will be an assertion of the broad opposition to more and more regressive taxes in the context of the larger struggle for a modern system of taxation which upholds public right and restricts monopoly right. Government must be held to account and forced to enact policies consistent with its responsibility to act in the interests of the society and not the narrow interests of the rich.

Manipulation of Taxation

In Part Four of a series or articles produced by the Workers' Centre of CPC(M-L), entitled "Government Claims on Social Product -- Neccesity for a Modern System of Taxation" (TML Daily, December 1, 2010 - No. 206), it is explained that the working class cannot accept that the issue of solving the problem of funding social programs through taxation can be reduced to increasing personal taxes, or in this particular case, a 'yes' or 'no' vote on the HST referendum. The central issue on taxation is to fight for a modern system of taxation based on satisfying the social need for increased funding for social programs.

As the Workers' Centre points out, the only source of funds for social programs is the socialized economy. The current method of funding social programs and all government expenditures through a tax regime that mainly targets the working class and middle strata through payroll taxes, sales taxes, individual property taxes and user fees, both distorts the source of wealth in the society and creates confusion over the issue of costs of production.

To determine what a modern system of taxation would look like it is necessary to view the socialized economy and claims on social product from a broad perspective, writes the Workers' Centre. The aggregate social product annually produced has to be looked at as an integral whole and the question of how that product is divided up examined. The working class, governments, and owners of capital claim almost the entire social product produced by the working class. Workers claim a portion of the social product according to their work and work-time on what they produce and make available through distribution and the provision of services. Government claims a portion of the social product to finance social programs and meet its needs and the general interests of society. Owners of capital claim a portion of the social product as profit according to their private ownership and control of parts of the socialized economy.

Within a socialized economy such as Canada's, government claims must be social and not individual in the same way that production, distribution and services are social, industrial and mass and not petty and individual, the Workers' Centre emphasizes. A modern taxation system in such a socialized economy must be focused on the revenue of enterprises and not individuals, explains the Workers' Centre, adding that governments should abolish individual taxation such as income taxes, sales taxes, individual property taxes and user fees for public services. Claims on revenue by workers and government are not costs of production, it is pointed out. The present taxation system reinforces the viewpoint of the owners of capital that claims on revenue, other than profit of enterprise, are costs of production, including the claims of workers and corporate taxes. This is a distortion of the reality of an interconnected socialized economy where the modern working class produces all the social product, all material goods and all social services.

In the discussion over taxes, workers and their allies are fighting for a modern definition of taxes where governments make their claims directly from the revenue of enterprises. The Workers' Centre points out that the destruction of manufacturing at the behest of the monopolies who seek their fortunes elsewhere in the global economy at will and leave communities devastated fuels the crisis by decreasing the wealth of the society overall, thereby decreasing the funds available to meet the claims of government for that part of the social product needed to fund social programs. As has also been pointed out by the Workers' Centre on many occasions, the solution to falling tax revenues to government lies not in increasing taxes on the working class, the poor and middle strata but in setting a new direction for the economy based on developing manufacturing and increasing production in forestry, in ship building, agricultural production and food processing and other manufacturing. Material production and the development of industry, particularly manufacturing, the transformation of the raw material wealth of the province for the benefit of the people of Canada and for trade on the basis of mutual benefit is indispensable and both the provincial and federal governments must be forced to adopt policies that defend public right and curb the monopolies. Health care, education, social programs and government services depend on the wealth created by the working class in material production. A taxation system based on personal income and consumer taxes and user fees is unsustainable. An economy without production is unsustainable.

Cuts to corporate taxes and increases to individual taxation, including the HST poll tax, are part of the anti-social offensive and an attack on nation-building. Regressive taxation based on individuals and not the main production, distribution and services centres of the economy, along with the sell-off of Canada's social and public assets such as BC Rail and BC Hydro contribute to the widening gap between rich and poor, a reduction in government funds to invest in social programs, and the overall wrecking of the local, provincial and national economy.

The question of what a modern system of taxation looks like cannot be left to governments which are more and more the instrument of the monopolies. There is broad opposition to the HST amongst the workers, women, youth, seniors and all those whose basic necessities have increased in price while incomes are decreasing. Defeating the HST in the referendum will be an advance for the resistance to the anti-social offensive of the provincial and federal governments. In fighting the HST the working class and its allies are raising the question of the need for a new direction for the economy, for development of manufacturing so our resources stay here and for an end to government policies that recognize only the claims of the rich whatever the consequences to society.

Abolish Individual Taxation!
Defeat the HST Poll Tax!
HST and Sell-Out of Public Assets and Resources No! Nation-Building Yes!

Return to top


Website:  www.cpcml.ca   Email:  editor@cpcml.ca