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
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.
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.
Defeat the HST Poll Tax!
- Barbara Biley -
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!
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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