01) CANADA POST: NEGOTIATE A FAIR COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT WITH CUPW

     Instead of tearing down Canada's mail delivery system and attacking the postal workers who provide this vital public service, the federal government and Canada Post must be compelled to negotiate a fair collective agreement with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, says the Communist Party of Canada.

     In a news release issued on June 1, the Communist Party's Central Executive Committee said, "Through their reckless actions, Canada Post management and the Harper Tories are on the brink of forcing the shutdown of postal delivery."

     "For seven months, instead of engaging in serious bargaining, Canada Post has stubbornly insisted on huge contract rollbacks. The company demand for a 22% cut in pay for new hires, its drive to gut the sick leave program won through difficult bargaining in previous agreements, and many other concessionary proposals, have nothing to do with preserving the financial viability of Canada Post. If the company was serious about this claim, it would have acted on the many valuable proposals raised in recent years by CUPW to improve the postal service for Canadians. Indeed, Canada Post has turned a profit every year for the past 16 years - hardly a picture of impending financial crisis and ruin!

     "The negotiating position of Canada Post has the fingerprint of the Harper government and its pro-corporate, anti-worker policies all over it. This attack is part of a much wider corporate/government assault on the overall wages, pensions and working conditions of both public and private sector employees across Canada, indeed across the entire capitalist world. This is yet another example of the corporate drive to boost profits by slashing the wages and pensions of working people.

     "Despite claims to the contrary, the shutdown of Canada Post operations as a result of management intransigence would deal a harsh blow against thousands of small businesses and their employees across the country. For the company to make dismissive comments that `there's plenty of time to negotiate' - as Jon Hamilton, Canada Post's director of communications, told CBC on May 30 - is a slap in the face for both customers and postal workers.

     "The very next day, after CUPW tabled serious new proposals to avert a shutdown, a Canada Post bargaining committee took less than ten minutes to reject the union's final offer in its entirety. This rejection signals that Canada Post and the Harper Tories are spoiling for a fight, hoping for an opportunity to inflict major damage on the labour movement and on working people across Canada. We can expect to see an escalation of intense and hateful attacks on postal workers by right-wing politicians and the corporate media. The aim of these anti-labour forces is to whip up anger against postal workers, to divide working people and set the stage for the break-up of Canada Post and the full privatization of this crucial public asset. The end result of this strategy can only be a much poorer mail system, higher costs for customers, lower wages and more dangerous working conditions, and bigger profits for the private corporations which seek to take over all postal delivery operations in Canada.

     "The Communist Party demands that instead of making outrageous statements about the potential costs of paying decent wages to postal workers, the management of Canada Post withdraw its anti-worker demands and bargain a fair collective agreement with its employees. Instead of encouraging Canada Post to continue down this dangerous path, the Harper government must be compelled to live up to its responsibilities to guarantee affordable and reliable mail service to Canadians in all regions, in rural and urban areas alike."

(The above article is from the June 16-30, 2011, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)