The current strike by 55,000 Canada Post workers is about more than postal workers. True, the members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) are fighting for decent wages and retirement incomes and safe working conditions, and they should be supported wholeheartedly in that. But this is a much more complicated and comprehensive struggle, pitting the interests of public services and institutions against those of privatization and profiteering.

As e-commerce drives demand for package delivery, private corporations like Amazon and DHL seeing their profits skyrocket, at the same time that public postal services face cuts. The federal government and Canada Post management could pursue a true public monopoly on package delivery, which would bolster public services and ensure fair wages, and set the stage for expanded public services like postal banking, something CUPW has campaigned for over the past several years.

But instead, Ottawa and the executives at Canada Post have colluded with major corporations in a steady campaign toward privatization.

The workers are united behind their union, with both urban and rural postal workers delivering a 95-percent strike vote. Clearly, CUPW members are prepared to take a stand against the erosion of wages, benefits and working conditions – fighting to stop the attrition that has plagued workers in both the private and public sectors for several years.

No doubt expecting the same kind of government intervention that curtailed workers’ right to strike in recent rail and port disputes, Canada Post failed to bargain in good faith. The corporation offered a paltry 11.5-percent wage increase over four years, completely insufficient to keep pace with inflation which reached 8 percent in 2022 alone. This is on top of years of stagnant wages and eroded benefits since the Conservative government of Stephen Harper.

Mainstream media coverage of the strike – by both private and public broadcasters – has been little more than a propaganda campaign on behalf of Canada Post. CUPW and postal workers are being blamed for “cancelling Christmas,” while the fact that the strike has been forced by Canada Post’s ongoing attacks on workers and Ottawa’s encouragement of the corporation’s bad faith bargaining has been ignored entirely.

The media has parroted Canada Post’s claim of a $3 billion loss since 2018. But this is a deceptive narrative as the loss reflects investments in new sorting facilities, vehicles and technology. Rather than repeat this misleading line, journalists and media should ask why Canada Post refuses to provide a living wage and dignified retirement for its 55,000 workers.

Currently, the federal government says it will not intervene in the dispute, and that it needs to be settled at the bargaining table. But people have heard this before and seen the promise broken on behalf of employers. Workers at CN, CPKC Rail, and the ports in Montreal and Vancouver are recent victims of Ottawa’s intervention which ignored their workers’ rights and effectively criminalized the right to strike.

This is a strike in which all working people have an interest. We need to build active solidarity with the 55,000 CUPW members, insisting that Canada Post bargain in good faith and table a fair offer that meets workers’ needs, and that the federal government honour workers’ right to strike.

[Photo: Faisal Hassan X]

The post Canada Post Strikers are Fighting for More Than Postal Workers first appeared on Labor Today.

The union, representing thousands of workers between the two railroads, said contract talks had reached an impasse. The filing of a Notice of Dispute with Canada’s Labour Minister generally means the government will appoint a conciliation officer to assist in negotiations.

“This is a crucial moment for our members at CPKC, who deserve meaningful progress on the issues that matter most,” said Unifor National President Lana Payne. “We entered bargaining ready to address the persistent challenges our members face, but the employer’s lack of urgency has left us with no choice but to seek assistance through the conciliation process.”

Unifor Local 101R began negotiations with CPKC in early October to address key issues such as work ownership, job security, and poor labor relations that have severely impacted the working environment. Despite Unifor’s commitment to resolving these concerns, CPKC’s failure to address these fundamental issues prompted the union to file for conciliation.

The development comes as the latest challenge on the labor front for CPKC and its rail network that spans from Canada to Mexico which it acquired when Canadian Pacific merged with Kansas City Southern to form CPKC.

In August, the railroad company along with CN, faced a threat of work stoppage by the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference Union in one of the biggest service disruptions in the country. That work stoppage began when CP and CN locked out 9,300 workers following months of talks that failed to produce new contracts. Canada’s federal labor board stepped in to impose binding arbitration to avoid a total supply chain breakdown between the Teamsters union and the railway.

The post CANADA: Unifor Files for Conciliation with Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Railroad first appeared on Labor Today.

“I just spent the day yesterday walking the picket line with locked out Teamsters Rail members in Edmonton. After listening to accounts from these frontline workers about what’s really happening at Canada’s two biggest railways, it’s clear to me that by granting CN and CPKC their wish for binding arbitration, the federal government is basically rewarding a foreign-owned cartel for its bad behaviour.

“I say this for three reasons: First, the service disruptions experienced across the country today were engineered by the companies, not the workers. The sides could have kept negotiating and the trains could have kept running: CN and CPKC just decided otherwise.

“Second, the decision by CN and CPKC to lockout their workers should be seen for what it is. It’s a temper tantrum thrown by anti-worker American corporate executives who don’t like Canadian labour laws and who just want to play by their own rules.

CN and CPKC manufactured a crisis in order to get the federal government to do what they didn’t want to do and what Canada’s evolving federal labour law says they shouldn’t do: strip workers of their constitutionally protected right to strike and bargain collectively. By giving CN and CPKC what they want, the federal government is essentially allowing two predominantly American owned companies to behave as if they are operating in Alabama, rather than Canada.

“Third, binding arbitration is the wrong way to go because it will not address the root causes of this dispute. The workers I spoke to today told stories of serious staffing shortages that are putting both service and safety at risk. But instead of addressing these shortages by making their companies more attractive places to work, both CN and CPKC want to force their already overworked staff to work even longer hours.

“The companies also refused to consider reasonable requests for wages that keep up with inflation (at a time when fees charged to shippers have increased at a rate far exceeding inflation). The two railways used to be highly prized places to work at, often with several generations of families proudly calling themselves railroaders. But that’s a thing of the past.

“Nowadays, both CN and CPKC are seeing annual employee turnover rates as high as 80 per cent. If the federal government allows CN and CPKC to impose their mean-spirited and family-unfriendly scheduling regimes, the problem of chronically under-staffed railways will only get worse, not better.

“In the end, there’s only one thing that we in the Canadian labour movement can agree with the CN and CPKC executives on: railroad workers provide a vital service. In fact, it’s too vital a service to be left in the hands of two price-gouging foreign monopoly companies. With that in mind, instead of helping American executives to screw Canadian workers, what I think the federal government should really do is consider ending our rail system’s disastrous experiment with vulture capitalism and re-nationalize our railroads.”

The post Statement from Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan on use of Binding Arbitration in Rail Dispute first appeared on Labor Today.

Teamsters Canada, the union that represents railroad workers in the country, has mentioned the “main sticking points at the bargaining table are company demands, not union proposals.” Both Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) Railroads want concessions on safety issues revolving around crew scheduling, rail safety, and fatigue management.

Like in the U.S., the Canadian railroaders work long hours while having on-call schedules making it difficult to work rested and ready for duty consistently. Both companies claim to be struggling with labor shortages and want to roll back fatigue protections to increase crew availability, regardless of the risks.

CPKC, which was formed from a merger last year from two railroads Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern are proposing to remove collective agreement of safety-critical fatigue provisions that help workers better anticipate when they might be called to work. Removing these provisions would force train crews to stay awake even longer, increasing the risk of derailments and other accidents. CPKC also failed to address the understaffing of rail traffic controllers.

CN is targeting fewer contract provisions around fatigue but still enough to raise safety concerns. Their demand to extend workdays in all provinces west of Ontario is of particular concern. CN aims to implement a forced relocation scheme, which would see workers ordered to move across the country for months to fill labor shortages, tearing families apart.

While the Teamsters Union has expressed their intention to strike, the two companies have declared a lockout for many Canadian rail networks. With close to two weeks of negotiations still ahead, this move represents an unnecessary escalation that goes against the principles of good faith bargaining that CN and CPKC claim to uphold.

In the U.S., railroad workers have also experienced labor disputes with the railroad corporations. Reduction in safety and reduced headcount for crews was a similar problem in 2022 when there was an effort to have a nationwide railroad strike in the U.S. Unlike Canada, the U.S. government prevented a railroad strike from happening. What happened two months later on February 3^rd, 2023 was the East Palestine, Ohio derailment which lease to the release of hazardous materials within the city limits.

Teamster Canada mentioned on their website that “compromising on safety or threatening to tear families apart for months at a time, are not pathways to an agreement or solutions to staffing problems. CN and CPKC should instead be looking to improve working conditions and adopt a more humane approach to railroading.”

The Canadian Class 1 railroads are following the American lead in slashing safety to improve production. It is clear they view the lives of their workers as expendable in order to keep the increased profits flowing. LUEL stands in solidarity with the railroaders in Canada in their fight. Read the full statement by Teamsters Canada here.

The post Canadian Railroads in Bad Faith Declare a Lockout for Railroad Employees first appeared on Labor Today.