Canada Post: Rotating strikes to start in Winnipeg

Starting tonight at 11:59pm, June 2, 2011, postal workers will be striking in Winnipeg. Instead of a national strike, the union has decided to pressure Canada Post through a series of rotating strikes.

According to a press release on CUPW’s web site dated June 1, 2011, meetings were held with CPC President Chopra and Labour Minister Lisa Raitt which basically involved reiterating the positions of all parties. Apparently nothing was resolved. The page indicates that as of 5pm EDT, no further meetings had been scheduled so Thursday looks like it will be a wash and merely be the countdown to the midnight strike action.

On Thursday, at 10:40am, CUPW posted the following announcement: June 2, 2011 – Negotiations Alert: Strike Begins Tonight in Winnipeg which describes strike action as consisting of a series of rotating strikes starting with Winnipeg. Other locations will be announced later.

The stumbling block in the negotiations is wages. Canada Post is citing rising costs and failing revenues as the cause for a review of labour costs which supposedly make up 64% of all costs. Canada Post has offered a four-year deal with wage increases of 1.9 per cent, 1.9 per cent, 1.9 per cent and 2.0 per cent in each year while the Union is proposing wages of 3.3 per cent, 2.75 per cent, 2.75 per cent and 2.75 per cent in each year of a four-year deal.

CUPW represents 48,000 full-time, part-time and temporary employees in its urban operations bargaining unit.

As a reminder, CUPW has said that volunteers will be ensuring that pension cheques and social assistance cheques will continue to be delivered.

This article was written at 1pm EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) so we will be following the story to see if there is a last minute breakthrough. If not, we all will have to contend not with a national strike, but rotating strikes. While a bit of a pain, this won’t be as painful to the public as having the entire country without mail delivery.

References

Canada Post set to strike on Thursday at midnight

Oye! Times, May 30/2011

Canadian Union of Postal Workers

June 2, 2011 – Negotiations Alert: Strike Begins Tonight in Winnipeg

The strike will begin at 11:59 p.m. EDT in Winnipeg (10:59 p.m. CDT). The Winnipeg local will be on strike for 24 hours, after which the strike will continue in other locations to be announced later.

The purpose of this strike activity is to encourage Canada Post Corporation to abandon their proposals for significant concessions and instead negotiate solutions to the very real problems that are being experienced by 48,000 postal workers.

Winnipeg has been chosen as the location for the first strike activity because it was the first city to be impacted by Canada Post’s modernization program. The results have been a sharp deterioration of service to the public as well as a host of health and safety problems experienced by postal workers due to the new work methods and equipment.

CUPW has negotiations demands designed to resolve these problems and we want Canada Post to address them.

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