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.”