Canadian Union of Postal Workers

Branches and members will know from the CWU website that our colleagues of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers are locked in a bitter dispute with the employer, Canada Post.

The collective agreement that CUPW had with Canada Post expired on 23 May and the union had been negotiating with the company for many months leading to that date. The company if demanding new employees are paid significantly less than existing employees. Further they want to reduce the terms and conditions of all current employees and impose working methods for new machinery.

Following the expiry of the contract the CUPW embarked on a series of legal rolling one day strikes across Canada in an attempt to convince Canada Post to negotiate responsibly and reach a new collective agreement with the union. The reaction from the employer was to lock out postal workers irrespective of whether they were involved in strike action. They have shut down the postal system across Canada and now the recently elected majority conservative government intend to make the Canadian Parliament sit for one extra week simply to pass emergency legislation to force postal workers back to work and impose binding arbitration.

This is an astonishing situation and one that must be viewed very closely by all postal workers globally.

The action of Canada Post and the Canadian government is against ILO conventions and the basic human rights of freedom of association and the ability to take strike action.

The union has sent messages of solidarity to the Executive and members of CUPW before and during the dispute.

You can tell the Canadian government of your disgust at their actions by sending a message to:

Messages of support can be sent to Denis Lemelin at CUPW, 377 Bank Street, Ottawa, Ontario, K2P 1Y3 or by email to dlemelin@cupw-sttp.org

More information on the dispute can be found at

http://www.cupw.ca/index.cfm/ci_id/1165/la_id/1.htm