The union, CUPW shut down Toronto mail processing facility for 2 days. Canada Post issued a 72 hour lockout notice.  The Federal Government 2 hours later appointed a federal Mediator. Why?

Lots of whys…

1) The union by closing Toronto cut the country in half. 80% of all packages and letters go throw TO. So the company reacted with a 72 hour lockout notice… so again why?

2) The union provoked the company by pushing them for the lockout notice and thus the mediator.

The lock out notice itself? It means nothing, once we went on strike last week; they can lock us out at any time without additional notice… but 😄

They cannot order us back to work unless we agree. They cannot legislate us back to work.

The Supreme Court says we have a right to strike. So they need a very compelling reasons to order us back in: as such to maintain the balance of power that being on strike would have on the employer. The back to work law must maintain the rights and power that we have in a strike in the new set up for bargaining. The Harper government tried to screw Canada Post Employees over in 2012 with final offer selection, i.e. one side will win and one side loses as the Arbiter cannot find a middle ground. This is the same thing as Doug Ford will try to do in Ontario. The result is this lasting gain. We go on strike, they cannot legislate us back in… Or they have to pass the test established by the Supreme Court. And best of all, if they pass that back to work law at 1201 am we have an injunction at 1202 and the law tossed the very next day by a judge because it takes away our strike power and does not meet the Supreme Court test.

3) So why the lockout notice? Mere threat. I saw the web site from Canada Post with it up on Tuesday. It is gone today. “Threat? What Threats they say now say! We did not make any threats.”

4) So why the mediator?

Mediation is designed to assist in reaching an agreement that both side would have reached eventually… ya sure.

The mediation is always physically conservative and socially liberal.

They are conservative on cash. You are not going to get rich from mediation. But then we don’t want to. Our issues are all about the social side of thing. This just happens to be where mediators are socially liberal. They don’t care about language as it costs nothing. Future flexibility is not a worry for today’s negotiation.

So for the last 9 months I would attend a meeting at another place and get paid to drive there and back. One hour each way. The plant is on the other side of Montreal. Add in my breaks for another hour and a 5 hour long meeting, so an 8 hour day to be paid. They stopped that in September. So next week, in order to be paid all 8 hour I must drive to work. Park and go in. Get either a set of keys for a vehicle, which since they are often short of trucks, they don’t have, in order to drive to the other work station. Or. They will pay for a taxi. It cost me 15$ to get to work from home. That takes 5 km and 5 minutes. The trip to the Plant takes me an hour to 80 minutes due to high volume of traffic; it is rush hour after all. The cost? We are guessing 80-100$ each way.

So to avoid paying me 60$, they are going to end up paying me that money anyways and a taxi for 200$

WTG to screw the employee… And best of all… once I do this once, I do it forever and my mandate is good for at least 2 more years…

Oh even better, last winter we asked for hats for like 12 people. Not part of our uniform. We argued it for 3 months. It would set a dangerous precedent to give us hats… They fought tooth and nail to not give us hats last winter, even going so far as to bring the matter to the union. They sent it to the union not on our side. We were only asking. Okay fine… So they are now going to give hats out to the drivers who can already get hats from the company by their uniform points. We who cannot get then and thus need company hats for winter… Are told nope…. Those hats, by the way, cost for each about 2$

Go figure….

Now tell me just how smart they are? Sounds like a lot of petty, mean spirited childishness from people in power who follow Lord Acton’s dictates, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Good Morning Prime Mister.

Another sleepless night from those on the front line of the coming postal strike, as some of us are not rich, and need our jobs to pay for things like rent, mortgages, food and medication. But we have no choice but to push for a strike in order to gain some ground and some respect. You might not have heard the technical side of this strike. One thing is the volume. A mailman will now, today, have to try to deliver some 100-150 parcels in a single day along with the flyers and mail. This amount is projected to increase 20% each year without additional compensation or added delivery time. For my part, the problem of being part time is my wages are based on the hours I work, but as a shop steward, I have to bring forward the issues of my fellow workers. Since I am part time, the retaliation I face is Canada Post and its administrators will try to intimidate me by cutting my hours. Those hours that I worked that they won’t pay me? I will have to wait for the pay, as the union could take as long as 6 months before they can get my money for me, so much for instructions to Canada Post to be nicer to employees. As a worker, I have no power. I can only name and shame people, hence this letter. One of the obvious reasons, we are going on strike would be to increase wages but also to remove those wage gaps and the ability of petty people to illegally pay games with my wages.

My point begins with something called Appendix “P”. I am very sure you have heard nothing about this. It means nothing to anyone really. What it means to me, is the ration of full time to part time to temporary employees, hardly the stuff of gripping novels, I‘m afraid. Here is my story and why it means something important to me.

In July of 2017, working as a part time employee, my hours and all the other part timers in my unit, 5 of us, were increased from 25 to 40. We were working full time hour at part time status. This worked out well for all concerned. The unit was hitting all its company targets such as budget. However, at the start of this September, 2018, right when contracts negotiations were getting busy, suddenly we were back to part time, 25 hours. For the last year, whenever there was a problem with my fellow employees, I would tell them to not rock the boat, working 40 hours, outweighed the problem they were having. And they agreed. But now we were back to lower hours, a floodgate opened and they had issues to resolve. As shop steward, I collect their issues and brought them forward, thus started the harassment attacking me, which is not supposed to happen. I believe you clearly stated on February 22, 2018, that the bullying at Canada Post stopped as of now. That memo never made it down as far as I am. The first thing that happened, I presented my member’s issues to my Superintendant. Now remember how I said I worked 25 hours? In that meeting, where as I was trying to get them to correct our payroll to reflect the correct hours that we worked, for our vacation and sick day would be missing hours when the system was incorrect as it still is. I was told, almost word for word, “Oh yea, you were working 25 hours that was a test so now you work 24 hours.” A clear threat, that not only did my fellow shop stewards agree was intimidation, the union local also agreed and  presented it to the his boss. The unit manager felt it was over the top. So we had to re-do the whole meeting all over again, only without the threats and intimidation. Sadly, it is so ingrained in the culture that even when warned not to make threats and not to try and intimidate me, the superintendant failed to follow instructions. The threats were minor and petty. But there were more threats as well.

I work on the Health and Safety Committee. Part of that means once a month I have to travel some 30 km between locations to attend the meeting. Up until this month, (September) I would be paid 8 hours. The travel is an hour there and back for 2 hours, a 5 hour meeting and an hour for lunch and breaks. The travel time is covered in our collective agreement, (art 32.01), it is covered in the Terms of Reference for Health and Safety, (art 5) and finally, it is even covered in the Federal law under the Labor Code, (art 135.1). Yet, surprise, surprise, I am not covered. Canada Post refused to pay me. See they are still trying to put me in my place. The funny thing is? All those issues I presented in September? None of them were mine! But now, all grievance Inquiries that I file have my name and only my name on them. I will not let administration have the chance to bully, intimidate and harass others as they are trying to do to me.

Long story short, what does this have to do with negotiation and Appendix “P”? If we had a better Appendix “P” that clearly forced Canada Post to live up to its obligation for staff of full time to part time, the people in my unit would already be full time and would not have to suffer this sort of intimidation, harassment and bullying that I have.

I, as a lowly worker, have no power. All I can do is name and shame people. So for my bullying, I will make it known to the union, maybe they can help. I will make it be known to local management higher up than my manager to shame them. And lastly, I will send my story to you. So you can see just what is at stake in these negotiations. Real people, real lives are being really bullied while working for the Federal Government. Don’t you think it’s time we ended bullying? Make Canada Post give us a fair shake to the negotiating table to help eliminate the petty abuse of power like detailed in my story above where they tried to steal 3 paid hours. Hardly a lot of money compared to the National Debt. But still, that 60$ or so was mine, not mine in 6 months from now, but mine yesterday when I should have been paid it.

Thanks for your time and anything you can do here!

Donald Trump insulted Stephanie Clifford aka Stormy Daniels for losing a part of her law suit against him. He called her “Horse face.”

All I have to say is that considering who was doing whom, vis-à-vis Trump and Stormy Daniels, if Trump visits your horse ranch, don’t leave him alone in the stable.

And like Shakespeare’s Richard the Third, Trump wonders around the White House wondering aloud; “A horse, my kingdom for a horse!”

Or at least  he will pay 130 K for one anyways.

Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as a Supreme court Justice yesterday but he should not have been. I don’t refer to some conspiracy to cast him as being horrible by the democrats, though this likely happened. I don’t refer to his having lied to the Senate, though this likely happened. And I don’t refer to his near rape of a Dr Ford near 40 years ago, though this also likely happened. No. I refer directly to his behavior in the hearing itself. Here is what he should have done:

“Thank you for hearing me today. Dr Ford’s testimony was extremely persuasive and extremely moving. Her pain seems as raw today as it must have felt for her 40 years ago. Her words describing the event are shocking and even the most extreme opposition to her coming forward must acknowledge that this single event 40 years ago has shaped her life and not in a positive direction. But it is to her credit that she has had the strength to carry on, to make a life and a successful career despite her trauma and pain. To those out there who would do her harm, or threaten her, let me be clear, you will be doing me and yourself no favors to attack this women. Leave her alone. She has been through enough. For my part; Dr Ford, I offer you my sincerest expression of sorrow, sympathy and apology for my part as the cause of your pain. I am truly sorry you have had to carry this burden for all these years!

Yet, I maintain my innocence, even as I strongly encourage you to believe her story. How is that possible in light of what she has said and what I have said here today about fully believing her story? And I do believe her story. Someone many years ago attacked a very young woman and tried to rape her. I believe her in all that she says. Except the identity of the person who tried. It was not me. I know this, because I was not there. So how then can I both believe her and not agree with her identification of me as the rapist? Witness identifications when faced with such a shock, trauma and probable post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are often the most unreliable testimony allowed in court. To wit: A women in New York was raped by a man with a mask on while the TV played an interview in the background to her horror. She fixated on the man being interviewed live in LA, California. When she reported her rape to the police, she had the sketch artist draw the exact picture of the man being interviewed. He happened to be a scholar who had just released a book on low reliability of witness identification. He could not be in both places at once. The rapist was caught and convicted by DNA evidence, but the victim and her identification was never swayed she had pointed at the wrong man.

I don’t know why she focused on me, maybe I was smiled at the wrong time, maybe I was nice to her at a low moment or maybe I made a cutting remark at an off time. It was high school, but whatever the reason, for whatever the cause, I am sorry that I am the face of her horror and trauma. I am so very sorry I am involved in a lifetime of her pain. Please forgive me for my part, but more importantly, forgive yourself and allow your scars, raw and re opened for the world to see today, to heal and fade away into the past where they clearly belong. Please allow them to finally heal, allow yourself to heal and move on with a wonderful life. Thank you Dr Ford for the courage and conviction to come forward and tell us your pain and the story of how it has affected you over these last 40 years. Please be healed and live out the rest of your days at peace. I wish for you all the best.”

Words to that effect; acknowledging the pain and suffering of this woman, offering a defense of her and her story in a manner befitting a nominee for the Supreme Court. Showing that a judge for the highest court of America is not an emotional basket case with a grudge against a women he raped 40 years ago or tried to and how dare she come back to haunt him at the very moment of his glory? How dare his drunken rages of his over privileged youth come back to be tossed into his face like that? Who does she think she is? Does she not know how self important, at any rape (rate) he is? See the testimony he gave after was exactly that. There is no doubt in my mind that Brett Kavanaugh is a drunkard guilty of attempted rape. Not by the testimony of Dr Ford, but by his own words and actions. He sounded like a liar and acted guilty. He was the exact opposite of what you would want to have as a judge of the Supreme Court. And he convicted himself in acting so.