Today Sunday June 9 2013 Dear Nader, Last week`s Sunday e-mail reported that a very important grievance dealing with the shift bid of May 12 had been filed with the Ottawa local of CUPW on Friday May 31, 2013. The grievance was to have been filed on that date but it was only filed on Tuesday June 4, 2013. Both you and Dave Woods from the local executive committee have accepted the grievance and signed for it. It is now the task of the Ottawa local executive committee to submit it to the employer and to courageously fight for its content while pushing it all the way through to formal arbitration if we have to. The grievance procedure is an important recourse that we must use to try and reverse the situation prevailing at the OMPP and in particular, the situation prevailing within the short and long section of Transaction Mail. As we mentioned last week, we plan to follow very closely the course of this grievance up to and including formal arbitration. This week, the Sunday e-mail is featuring a letter that our National President Denis Lemelin wrote to Pierre Poilievre, a Conservative member of parliament on May 29, 2013. The letter severely criticizes Poilievre for the remarks he made in the House of Commons on May 7, 2013 while he was defending the government`s budget implementation bill, bill C-60. Last week, we briefly discussed the bill and made some comments regarding the reporting by Canada Post of its quarterly and annual financial reports and the relationship with the government`s legislation to allow Treasury Board to interfere in the collective bargaining process at Crown corporations. CUPW NATIONAL PRESIDENT CONDEMS CONSERVATIVE MEMBER OF PARILAMENT FOR HIS REMARKS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS May 29, 2013 Pierre Poilievre, MP House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6 Dear Mr. Poilievre, I am writing in response to your remarks in the House of Commons on May 7, 2013. At that time you were attempting to defend Bill C-60. I must confess that your stunning ignorance of the facts surrounding the financial situation of Canada Post and the CUPW collective agreement serve only to convince me more of the folly of involving uninformed politicians, such as yourself, in the collective bargaining process of federal Crown Corporations. In your remarks you suggest that the job security provisions of the CUPW collective agreement result in postal workers staying at home without work on the public payroll. You also said that the union requires taxpayers to fund almost 500 corporate post offices. These statements are not true and display a remarkable ignorance of the actual situation. The fact is that the job security provisions of our collective agreement have never caused a problem for Canada Post. In fact the job security provisions of our collective agreement were never in dispute during the 2011 collective bargaining because CPC acknowledged that the high rate of retirements ensured that they could reduce the staffing complement if it was required. Contrary to your statement taxpayers have not funded anything to do with Canada Post. Instead they have benefited from the income tax and dividends paid by CPC during the very years that our collective agreement has been in force. The record speaks for itself. During the period 1996-2012 CPC was profitable every year except 2011. During that time the net income taxes paid to the government amounted to $486 million and an additional $589 million was paid in dividends. No taxpayer money was used to fund postal operations except for what was necessary to finance public policy programs such as mail for the blind and free mailings for members of parliament such as yourself. With respect to pensions I can only remind you that your pension plan, as a member of parliament, is far more lucrative than those of postal workers. A postal worker with 25 years of service, meeting the age requirement, can look forward to a CPC pension of less than $20,000 per year. What would your pension pay after such a length of service? Finally you mention the recent Conference Board of Canada report in your remarks. Are you aware that this report, which was written in 2011, estimated the financial loss of Canada Post for 2012 to be $250 million? The fact is that CPC actually reported a $98 million profit in 2012. Once again your opinions are based on ideology and myths instead of facts and analysis. Members of parliament have a responsibility to understand issues and base their conclusions on facts. Your remarks indicate that you have completely failed on both accounts. Sincerely, Denis Lemelin National President ANOTHER POSTAL WORKER IN MONTREAL TAKES HIS OWN LIFE. THIS IS THE 8th DEATH BY SUICIDE IN MONTREAL WITHIN THE PAST TWO YEARS. Last week, TVA, a Montreal television station reported that another Canada Post employee had committed suicide. The postal worker was 57 years old and had been working as a truck driver at the mail processing plant in Saint-Laurent, Montreal. This is the 8th postal worker to have committed suicide in the Montreal area in less than two years. Postal workers in Montreal are reported to be very worried regarding the situation. They say that the worker who took his own life had been off work as a result of an injury on duty but that Canada Post had contested his claim. For the workers, his death leaves many unanswered questions. Was his death related to his conditions of work and to the difficulties he was having regarding his injury on duty? Such is one of the many questions on the minds of those he has left behind. The suicide rate amongst postal workers in Montreal is raising serious questions about workplace stress and the impact of Canada Post’s modernization project on the workers. Not long ago, when the suicide of two other postal workers who had been working together in St-Hubert took place, workers complained about their working conditions and having to work long shifts and late evening schedules. They also complained at the time of ongoing harassment by management and threats of disciplinary action if they did not finished their routes in time. At the time, a local CUPW representative had also raised serious concerns about the two deaths and alluded that they might be related to the deteriorating working conditions since the implementation of the “Modern Post”. On June 5, 2013 the Sunday e-mail spoke with Serge Champoux National Union Representative for the CUPW on health and safety matters. He deplored the many suicides in Montreal but stated that no file had been opened by the union on the subject. He said that the union was very preoccupied by the situation and was working very closely with the Montreal local monitoring the situation. He also stated that it is very hard to establish whether a suicide is work related or not and would not venture in this direction. He said that the most important thing was to support the families who were going through a period of grief. He added that the Montreal local in this instance had refrain from making any comments regarding the latest suicide and so did the National Office of CUPW. Canada Post has systematically refrained for the past two years from issuing any comments regarding the deaths by suicide of so many postal workers in the Montreal region and has gone so far as to deny the many deaths sending reporters to inquire through the Access to Information Act. To this day, Canada Post remains silent about the matter also preferring “to support the families in their moments of grief”. Postal workers in Ottawa are very preoccupied by the situation as well. Many postal workers think that the suicides should be properly investigated by the union as a matter relating to the health and safety of the workers while also supporting the families in their grief. The Sunday e-mail extends its deepest condoleances to all the families affected and to all the members of the Montreal local of CUPW. In Solidarity, Danielle Desormeaux hoffddesormeaux@gmail
Posted on: Sun, 09 Jun 2013 21:10:59 +0000
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