Denounce Renewed Attempts to Criminalize Postal Workers!
Stand with Postal Workers!
Rally at Canada Post headquarters, Ottawa, December 11, 2024
On Friday, December 13, Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon referred what he calls "the dispute" between Canada Post and the 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) to the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB). This "dispute" is more accurately described as a refusal of Canada Post to negotiate with the workers so that their just demands are met and instead manipulate the process to reach its privatizing goals. MacKinnon directed the CIRB to order the striking workers back to work in the event it were to determine negotiations are at an impasse.
The CUPW appeared before the CIRB under order from the Minister of Labour following which the CIRB concluded that the two parties would not reach an agreement by December 31 -- a position the CUPW disputed. On the basis of the CIRB decision the workers were ordered to return to work on Tuesday, December 17. Despite this, the Union successfully secured a five per cent wage increase for 2024.
Canada Post agreed to retroactively apply the wage increase to the expiration dates of the collective agreements. Retroactive pay will come in two portions, the first being a $1,000 payment before Christmas for regular full-time and part-time employees and $500 for temporary employees based on a minimum number of hours. The rest of the pay will be distributed in January.
Postal workers across the country expressed their anger at the company and government machinations and picket lines stayed up until the forced return to work went into effect Tuesday morning. As a show of support, workers from other unions set up solidarity picket lines at the Pacific Processing Plant in BC and a plant in Nova Scotia on Tuesday morning which delayed postal workers' return. In Scarborough, in a show of unity and defiance, workers rallied outside the plant before reporting for work, denouncing this latest attack on their rights, then marched in to work together.
Members
of other unions and labour councils picket outside the Pacific
Processing Plant in Richmond, BC, after CUPW members were ordered back
to work, December 17, 2024.
The Union asserted that the current process imposed by the Minister undermines workers' rights. It said it would continue its fight for justice and informed that it has commenced a constitutional challenge to the CIRB ruling which is scheduled for January 13-14, 2025.
When the CIRB determined negotiations were at an impasse, it extended existing collective agreements until May 22, 2025. This once again puts dealing with the workers' demands into Never Never Land. Their claims for not only the wages they require and stability of employment but also safe working conditions and reasonable hours of work are immediate. Now the workers are forced to wait until May and the outcome is no longer in their hands!
Further underscoring the government's self-serving manipulation of the process, MacKinnon announced "he will appoint an industrial inquiry commission to look into the bargaining issues and come up with recommendations by May 15 on how a new agreement can be reached."[1]
This reveals just how cruel and ill-intentioned the government is.
Not only does it dismiss the urgency of the workers' demands, but under
the guise of studying things properly, it covers up that negotiations
for a new contract have been ongoing for the past year on a contract
extended already since 2021!
Collective
agreements between
Canada Post and the CUPW expired on December 31, 2023, for the Rural
and Suburban Mail Carriers (RSMCs) unit and on January 31, 2024, for
the urban unit. The Corporation and government have had plenty of time
and opportunities to conduct studies. The problem is not a lack of
studies. Postal workers know these studies are self-serving and bogus,
intended to prove the need for privatization which is not the way to go
for Canada.
MacKinnon's orders underscore the arrogance and brutality of governments which think they can act with impunity because of their positions of privilege and power. They also show that it is the workers who must carry forward nation-building for Canada. Defending and strengthening a Canada Post which meets the interests of all Canadians is an important part of that.
Year after year Canada Post workers produce enormous amounts of new value. The social value they produce is a contribution to Canada's national wealth and our collective well-being. Postal workers claim a portion of the new value they produce as payment in exchange for Canada Post employing them and using their capacity to work. The amount postal workers claim for wages, benefits and pensions in exchange for their capacity to work comes from the new value they produce. It cannot in any way be considered a cost to the company, government, economy or country.
But considering postal workers "a cost" is precisely the premise of the government and Canada Post Corporation. In fact, to label postal workers' claim for wages, benefits and pensions a "cost" is a lie that everyone must denounce as unjust, unscientific and an abuse of postal workers and the entire working class.
Canada Post, the government and mass media endlessly repeat the lie that postal workers' wages are a "cost." The reason for this attack on the dignity of the working class is to turn public opinion against the struggle of workers to maintain or advance their standard of living in accordance with the advance in productivity of the modern productive forces.
The global elite in control want to expropriate as private profit the new value postal workers produce. The big lie of work-time as a cost of production becomes part of the attack on postal workers' right to negotiate the terms of their employment and strike if necessary to put pressure on Canada Post to come to an agreement. The big lie is an effort to turn the opinion of Canadians against postal workers while excusing the government's criminalization of workers. The government forced postal workers to end their strike on pain of facing huge fines and even imprisonment. This makes continued all-sided support for their just cause all the more important.
The
struggle of postal workers to defend their right to a say over their
terms of employment is an important contribution to the emergence of a
modern democratic personality that embodies the fighting spirit and
qualities of the working class and its striving for empowerment and
control over all affairs that affect its work and lives.
People all across the country should denounce the big lie of Canada Post and government that the social value postal workers produce is a "cost" and that the company through government power has the monopoly right to impose wages and working conditions that are not acceptable to the workers who produce the social value the country and people require to exist.
The negation of postal workers' right to defend their wages and working conditions proves the government is unfit to rule. The right of workers to defend their wages and working conditions with strikes if necessary arises from the reality that they do not control the means of production and must sell their capacity to work to those who own and control the socialized economy. The government is using the power of the state machine to negate the rights of workers and serve the rich and their insatiable demand for private profit. This must not pass! Stand with postal workers and their just strike struggle!
Sudbury
Spanish-Elliot Lake
Sault
Ste Marie
Thunder
Bay
Note
1. On December 13 on X, the Minister of Labour Steven MacKinnon posted an official statement saying that negotiations between Canada Post and CUPW were at an impasse and:
"I have asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to assess the likelihood of the parties reaching negotiated agreements by the end of 2024 under the current circumstances, and if the CIRB considers this unlikely, to order the Canada Post Corporation and all employees represented by CUPW to resume and continue their operations and duties, and to extend the terms of the existing collective agreements until May 22, 2025.
"... I will appoint an Industrial Inquiry Commission (IIC) to examine the issues preventing the resolution of the current labour dispute. I will direct the Commissioner to provide recommendations by May 15, 2025, on how new collective bargaining agreements can be reached."
In a press conference the same day on Parliament Hill, MacKinnon elaborated that Commissioner William Kaplan would "examine the structure of Canada Post, examine its collective agreement, examine its arrangements with its employees and its business plans and come forward with some proposals on the way to move forward, hopefully proposals after he speaks with the parties that they can find some reflection of their aspirations within."
MacKinnon said that "the inquiry will have a broad scope as it will examine the entire structure of Canada Post from both a customer and business model standpoint considering the challenging business environment now facing Canada Post."
This article was published in
Thursday,
December 19, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/ITN2024/Articles/TI54721.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca