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Nova Scotia: Mass rallies of workers and residents support postal workers
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Demonstration in Halifax supporting locked-out postal workers on June 18th. A large banner of the Public Service Alliance of Canada says it all: “Attacks on the public sector – NO!; Public Service – YES!; All for One and One for All; Canadians Stand As One!”
Sydney: Breton CUPW local president Gordon MacDonald, left, and CBDLC president Todd MacPherson, middle, lead a rally of postal workers and their supporters in front of the Canada Post office on Charlotte Street, Saturday. T.J. Colello - Cape Breton Post
The central issue: Rights and the dignity of labour
Halifax rally spilled over on both sides of Almon Street at the Halifax processing centre
Rally was lively, with songs, slogans, and speeches
Back view of the rally organized by the Halifax-Darmouth Labour Council
Trade unionist from the nurse’s union, one of many to address the rally
The coming generation has a stake in today’s struggles
Monopoly media knows which side its on
By TONY SEED, Photos by SCOTT BARBER
(June 20, 2011) -- ON SATURDAY JUNE 18, more than 300 workers representing various unions in Halifax, along with residents from the community and a large number of youth rallied in support of the strike of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers in front of the Almon Street factory where some 800 postal workers have been locked out, along with postal workers across Canada. Another mass rally was held in Sydney, Cape Breton and in St John’s, NL, and many more across Canada.
A total of 48,000 workers were locked out last Tuesday. Rather than negotiating with the workers, Canada Post has broken off negotiations to rely on the Harper government's threat of back-to-work legislation and the hysteria of the media that the locked-out postal workers are responsible for disrupting services to “the public” and “threatening economic recovery and security” and even tourism.
In Halifax, all those present demanded that Canada Post restart postal services and negotiate a new contract defending the Canadian standard of living and defined-benefit pensions for all workers including new hires. Canada Post is trying to create a two-tiered workplace and attacking pensions across the country, the fundamental issue. This has become a trend in Canada and it must be opposed at every juncture, participants stressed. CUPW stressed that if they are legislated back to work by the Harper government, their struggle will not be suspended but will persist.
Among the unions represented at the lively rally organized by the Halifax-Dartmouth Labour Council were the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, the Canadian Auto Workers, the Nova Scotia Government Employees Union, theatrical union, nurse’s union, and several others.
The rally, chaired by David Bush of the Halifax Dartmouth Labour Council, heard numerous speakers explain the issues in the rotating strike turned lock out.
Rick Clarke, president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, said that he for one had not celebrated on the night of the federal elections, and the provocations and draconian threats of the Harper Government, despite the “responsible conduct” of the postal workers, have confirmed his worst fears. He warned the workers that “we are in a war, and a war that will last a long time,” and their response and organization must be carried in this context. The attack is not just on the postal workers, it is on the Canadian working class. He said the trade union movement in Nova Scotia is entirely united behind the postal workers. Jeanne Baldwin, Atlantic vice-president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada said that all Canadians must take the stand to “Stop Harper!” and work out their agenda to do so.
A speaker from the Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW) spoke about the strike of Air Canada workers saying that it would not have been possible to get a tentative agreement in the face of back-to-work legislation without the unity of the Air Canada workers and the solidarity expressed by unionized workers across Canada. CAW thanked the postal workers who had joined CAW picket lines at the Halifax International Airport. The CAW's tentative agreement with Air Canada includes handing off to an arbitrator the fundamental issue of a two-tier pension system which denies new workers defined benefits.
Speaker after speaker from the unions and the community pointed out that this struggle of the postal workers is the struggle of all, and that the threatened repression by Harper is a cover for the rich and their state, whether in the public or private sector, to impose their agenda of anti-labour concessions from the workers, privatize the public sector, and expand deregulation.
A large banner of the Public Service Alliance of Canada said it all: “Attacks on the public sector – NO!; Public Service – YES!; All for One and One for All; Canadians Stand As One!”
Other placards and banners featured such slogans as “CUPW - LOCKED OUT!,” “Defend the Dignity of Labour!,” “Concessions Are Not Solutions!,” and “Defend the Rights of All!”
Rallies were also held on Saturday in Sydney, Cape Breton and Toronto. The Sydney rally was addressed by Mayor John Morgan of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality at which he also reportedly stressed, “this is a war against the working class.”
Letter carrier John Ross of Sydney was at the rally with his two daughters, Paige and Payton. The girls held signs in support of their father. Ross said among other issues, losing medical coverage for both he and his family was a monumental concern. “With two young children, seven-years-old, they’re just starting their lives and as the years go on, you never know what’s around the bend,” he told the Cape Breton Post. “You never know what they’re going to need medically and dental. If you have to pay out of your own pocket, the price is definitely expensive.”
The rally was the second successive mass action in Halifax. On Friday June 17 over 100 workers and residents held a mass picket at the Almon Street factory. Rallies were also held on Friday in Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa and Windsor, Ont.
And what does the monopoly media have to say about these manifestations? Nothing. They want people to believe they are “a poorly supported foe,” in the words of a Halifax Chronicle Herald editorial (Tories to big labour: This is just the start, June 20).
Then why has the Herald gone out of its way to publish three editorials attacking the postal workers?
On the other hand, it has lots to say in praise of anti-worker legislation being tabled in the Parliament to force postal workers back to work, of the new role of goon enforcer which the Harper government has given itself is and how it favours monopoly right, not public right. The Chronicle Herald speaks in the language of force and violence to justify the criminalization of rights and those who defend them: “When you have a hammer, many problems look like a nail. With the hammer of its new parliamentary majority in hand, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government decided the mail is a nail... (“Back-to-work bills are bang on,” June 18) The Herald says whatever it likes to deny the rights of Canadians. It does not even question Canada Post for targeting postal workers.*
On June 17th, on the CUPW website, Dennis Lemelin, national president, wrote that contrary to earlier media disinformation, there have been no scheduled talks in Ottawa between union negotiators and Canada Post.
Mr Lemelin also took the opportunity to assail Canada Post for their lack of cooperation and “refusal to truly negotiate.”
“Just as they have done for almost eight months, (Canada Post) is waiting for the back-to-work legislation that they so desperately wanted. Instead of negotiating, they will be provided with a government-appointed arbitrator, who will have a mandate to attack the rights and benefits that postal workers have struggled for decades to achieve.”
CUPW has pointed out that the knowledge that back-to-work legislation would be passed removes any obligation on Canada Post’s part to negotiate in good faith. “This is true,” notes TML Daily in an editorial today. “All Canada Post has to do now is give up whatever it thinks an arbitrator will consider extremist so that in return it will get the most extreme concession which opens the door for all others – two-tier workplaces. It shows how rotten the new role of goon enforcer which the government has given itself is and how it favours monopoly right, not public right.”
CUPW has agreed to deliver social assistance and pension cheques, regardless of the dispute’s status.
Endnote
* It is not some ancient history that the media monopolies reaped fabulous profits from Canada Post’s privatization of advertising flyers, employing in too many cases child labour (i.e., newspaper carriers) to deliver them in the place of postal workers. Nor is it ancient history that the Halifax Herald Ltd. brutally fired ten reporters in 1988 for daring to try and unionize its workers.
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