CC: NDP Labour Critic, The Hon. Matthew Green, CPC Labour Critic, The Hon. Kyle Seeback, Bloc Quebecois Labour Critic, The Hon. Louise Chabot, CEO of Canada Post, Doug Ettinger

I am writing to urge the Liberal Government to support workers and see Canada Post offer a fair deal to the 55,000 CUPW members currently engaged in strike activity across Canada. Canada Post provides an important public service, and both workers and postal service users deserve better.

While postal workers struggle to survive the ongoing affordability crisis, Canada Post is proposing to cut worker’s pensions, cut benefits, and restructure letter carrier work to become more exploitive and precarious. Right now, Canada Post is laying off workers, cancelling allowances, and cancelling earned and agreed to vacation leave while CUPW members are on strike, which goes against the Canada Labour Code. Meanwhile, Crown corporation CEOs can get paid up to $661,400 plus an additional 33% performance award on the public dime, while workers have to pay the price.

After more than a year of negotiations, Canada Post still refuses to put forward a serious contract which respects its workers. The company hopes the Liberal government will once again trample CUPW members' charter-protected right to strike, as it did recently with use of s. 107 on port workers, and in 2018 with back-to-work legislation. So long as corporations know that the Government will step in on their behalf, they will not bargain in good faith.

Canada Post is a first and foremost a public service – funded by those who use the post office and does not receive taxpayer money. In recent years, Canada Post has failed to leverage an increasing parcel market in the face of non-union competition, like Amazon, contributing to financial decline. CUPW members recognize the importance of maintaining Canada Post as a public good for all Canadians and are proposing the expansion of new and necessary public services to increase revenues. Workers should not have to bear the cost of executive decisions that only serve to slice our public services piece by piece to the private sector’s highest bidders.

Workers deserve a fair deal and the Liberal government must take concrete steps to ensure a fair deal between CUPW members and Canada Post is made possible. Instead of pushing back-to-work legislation or mandatory arbitration, I urge the Liberal government to:

• Encourage free and open bargaining between Canada Post and CUPW members


• Reign in Canada Post CEO Doug Ettinger


• Expand Canada Post’s retail and delivery services as proposed by CUPW members to include:
  
  
  
  • Postal banking
  
  
  • Check-in services
  
  
  • Community hubs and electric vehicle charging stations
  
  
  
  
• Restore and expand door-to-door delivery.


• Maintain the moratorium on post office closures.

Canada Post is a national, public corporation that belongs to all Canadians. A fair deal for postal workers is a fair deal for each and every one of us. I’m calling on the Liberal government to protect workers’ rights and defend our public postal service for everyone.