Public Post Office Under Attack – CUPW begins Strike Action Nationwide

Today, the Minister responsible for Canada Post, Joël Lightbound, announced massive changes to the Government’s mandate for Canada Post and huge service cutbacks to the public.

This announcement was an outrage. Minister Lightbound gave the Union no indication that he was going to do this when leadership met with him last week. The Minister said he had the “utmost respect” for postal workers. This is no way to show it.

Lightbound announced that the Government was accepting and instructing Canada Post to implement the recommendations from William Kaplan’s Industrial Inquiry Commission (IIC) Report from May. These include:

• Converting 4 million addresses to Community Mailboxes.
• Gutting the rural moratorium on post office closures.
• Giving Canada Post more “flexibility” in its delivery standards, including by cutting the requirement to deliver 5 days a week.
• Giving Canada Post the ability to raise stamp rates more frequently.

The Minister emphasized the importance to serve all Canadians, but these recommendations will only undermine public service. We have no details on how any of them will be implemented.

Converting more addresses to CMBs makes little sense when customers want their parcels to the door. The Government has completely failed to consider the problems it faced a decade ago when CPC last tried to convert door-to-door to CMB delivery.

The announcement also ignores how changes to delivery standards could impact mail volumes and confidence in service. And it fails to consider the importance of the moratorium on post office closures to help ensure universal service.

These recommendations could result in major job losses. On this, the Minister simply dodged questions from reporters.

In accepting the Kaplan report, the Government has completely rejected the need to diversify revenue streams and expand services, accepting instead Canada Post’s requests for cuts.

Following the announcement, we heard from the federal mediators that Canada Post needs until next week to present new global offers.

Postal Workers Will Fight Back

This slapdash approach without full public consultation is an insult to the public and to postal workers. The Government may act as the sole shareholder, but the public owns the post office. There was no indication as to what this means for the planned mandate review – nor when that will happen given these massive changes.

We cannot accept this attack on good jobs and public services.  Let’s now turn our efforts to making sure the Government and Canada Post hear us loud and clear. We have done it before. We will do it again.

Strike Action Update

In response to the Government’s attack on our postal service and workers, effective immediately, all CUPW members at Canada Post are on a nation-wide strike.

In solidarity,