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.