The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.44           December 15, 1997 
 
 
Canadian Gov't Orders End To Postal Strike  

BY BRIGITTE GROUIX AND MICHEL PRAIRIE
MONTREAL - Late in the evening of December 2, the federal parliament in Ottawa adopted back-to-work legislation against a country-wide strike by 45,000 postal workers. The bill had been introduced the day before by the Liberal government of premier Jean Chrétien.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) members have been on the picket line since November 19 against Canada Post, a crown corporation. Under the law, union officials advising their members to defy the order can be fined up to CAN $50,000 a day and their organizations up to $100,000 a day. Individual union members refusing to go to work face up to $1,000 a day in fines.

Two days before the introduction of the bill, Chrétien had threatened strikers, "In Canada, citizens respect the law or they must answer for their actions to the justice system."

The antilabor law also imposes wage increases of 1.5 percent, 1.75 percent, and 1.9 percent for the three years of the contract - less than Canada Post offered at the bargaining table, according to the union. All other outstanding issues in the contract will be put before a mediator, who will impose a settlement if Canada Post and the postal union do not reach an agreement by February.

Two of the four opposition parties in parliament, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois, voted against the bill. But both made clear beforehand that they would not try to slow down the debate in parliament, allowing the measure's expedited adoption. The NDP is a social-democratic party with close links to the trade unions outside of Quebec and the Bloc Quebecois is a Quebec-based bourgeois nationalist party.

The workers and their union oppose Canada Post's plan to cut $200 million from its budget in the next five years, at their expense.

André Lepage, a striker at the Downtown sorting station in Montreal, explained to the Militant earlier in the strike that a major stake in the conflict "is the cut of 4,000 full- time jobs by changing the routes of the letter carriers" and forcing them to deliver more mail.

"There are 9,000 temporary positions that we want to change into permanent jobs," said Lepage. "This is cheap labor. They [Post Canada] hire people from minorities and women. It looks good. But they are placed in a position.. that is some kind of slavery." In the current negotiations, the CUPW is demanding that 1,500 part-time jobs become full-time. Some 18,000 postal workers are currently either part-time or casual.

After eight months of fruitless negotiations and five days into the strike, Ottawa appointed Warren Edmondson as mediator in the conflict on November 24. A few days later, Edmondson told the government that the negotiations were at an impasse. This was the pretext that the government had been looking for to introduce back-to-work legislation.

Since the beginning of the strike, Canada's rulers have been campaigning against the postal workers. The official opposition party in parliament, the Reform Party, demanded that the government take away the right of postal workers to strike altogether. "This is the fourth strike in ten years" at Canada Post, complained Reform member of parliament Jim Gouk. "It has cost over $2 billion. It must be the last strike for Canada Post." The Canadian Federation of Independent Business announced that small- and medium-size businesses were losing $200 million per day because of the strike.

Even before the bill was introduced in parliament, postal workers were outraged by the prospect of an antistrike law. "It isn't democratic," said Richard Delisle, a letter carrier for 24 years at Candada Post in Montreal. "You could sense it during the negotiations that it had been prearranged," he added. Alfonso Gagliano, the federal Minister responsible for Canada Post, had made the promise of an early end to a postal strike last August to the Canadian Direct Marketing Association.

CUPW members responded to the antistrike bill with a series of actions across the country. In Ottawa some 100 strikers picketed November 30 in front of an "open house" visit organized at the house of Reform Party leader Preston Manning. On December 1 protests were held in Toronto; Vancouver, British Columbia; St. John, New Brunswick; and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. And on December 2 strikers blocked deliveries of Canada Post cargo at the Pearson international airport in Toronto, delaying some flight departures. Some 500 workers demonstrated in Montreal and 200 in front the federal parliament in Ottawa. Other noisy protest pickets were held across the country.

Wearing green ribbons in solidarity with teachers fighting against the Ontario Conservative government's education "reform" legislation, strikers at South Central sorting station in Toronto explained to the Militant earlier in the strike that they were getting a lot more honks of support than during previous strikes. "Everybody is having a lot of trouble, not just the postal workers," commented striker Kenny Dayal.

In Montreal the roughly 600 participants in a Nov. 28-29 conference that launched a new "sovereignist and progressive" movement of political action against the ruling Parti Quebecois in Quebec adopted a motion of support to the postal workers strike and denounced Ottawa's antistrike legislation.

Union meetings will be held across the country in the next day or so where union members will be able to discuss out their reaction to the back to work law.

In the Montreal demonstration workers these reporters spoke to were resigned to the perspective of going back to work. But the crowd's mood was undefeated, with very noisy whistles and chants in French of "So, so, solidarity!" Strikers responded with a roar of approval when André Frappier, president of the CUPW local in Montreal, said, "Social peace, it's over. Canada Post will find it a long three years," in reference to the duration of the imposed contract.

Joe Young and Annette Kouri in Montreal and Katy LeRougetel in Toronto contributed to this article.  
 
 
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