(The following article is from the December 1-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Sam Hammond

On November 17, 2,400 members of the Union of Postal Communications Employees (UPCE), a component of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) went on strike against Canada Post.

     At the heart of this strike is the attempt by Canada Post to deprive workers of their present accumulated sick leave of 15 days per year and 5 days paid family related leave. The Canada Post proposal is to cut the 20 days to 7 days personal leave and turn over the control and policing of the healthcare program to Manulife and Employment Insurance. This devious scheme would effectively cut entitled days by 13, shift the cost of Short-term Disability to E.I. and introduce Manulife as a corporate health care cop. If you look at this as the short end of the wedge, with the 77,000 other employees of Canada Post (mostly CUPW members) as the extended target, the implications are enormous.

     This is a combination of privatization of Canada Post's financial responsibilities, downloading cost onto Employment Insurance which was never meant as a health care provider, and a giant step into the machinations of the Tory Government to deregulate and privatize Canada Post.

     The largest postal union, CUPW, is well aware of the high stakes in this opening shot of the battle against privatization and deregulation of Canada Post. CUPW is active in solidarity and strike support for PSAC and there is a signed protocol between the two unions for picket line co-ordination. The web pages of both unions make it clear that they are in solidarity, and both know that this is an attack on all postal workers and the opening shots by a right-wing Tory government on one of our most important and lucrative publicly owned services.

     Canada Post delivered profits of $160 million in 2007 and is expected to top this amount in 2008.