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A cold winter morning didn’t stop Canada Post workers in Saskatoon from gathering for a rally on Saturday.
It’s been just over one year since the federal government stepped in and ordered workers back to work, as contract negotiations between the union representing Canada Post workers and Canada Post continued.
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Around 30 people showed up at the Vimy Memorial in downtown Saskatoon to show their support and CUPW 824 Local president Brahm Enslin said the turnout says a lot.
“We were standing out here in this type of weather last year on the picket lines, they’re standing out here again,” he said.
“This isn’t just postal workers, these are community members that believe in the public service that the post office brings.”
While Enslin isn’t at the negotiating table he did say this last year has been difficult.
“It hasn’t been great, obviously we’ve been at odds the entire year,” he said.
“I know that they’ve talked about now being in an agreement in principle, but that’s only an agreement in principle — it’s not a tentative agreement, it’s not a collective agreement.”
“It’s been an extremely frustrating year.”
Enslin said there is one question that keeps coming up from Canada Post workers as negotiations continue to drag out.
“It’s been a couple years now without a contract,” he said. “How much longer can we wait before we get a fair contract?”
It’s also been just over a month since Canada Post announced its hope to modernize the company, which has left many Canada Post workers and the union worried.
“They haven’t spoken specifically to Saskatoon, but they (Canada Post) have announced that by 2035 they’re looking to have 30,000 less positions,” Enslin said.
“They mentioned that’s through attrition, but also through voluntary buyouts. So when you say voluntary buyouts, they’ve got a plan for layoffs and from the sounds of it they don’t plan on replacing (the positions).”
Enslin wants those who rely on the postal service to be aware of what’s going on behind the scenes.
“What I would like to say to the public is that we need to understand that there’s a planned effort here to try to cut this service from underneath their feet,” he said.
“Before they know it, they won’t have that service, especially when you’re living in a smaller community where the post office is the last service they actually rely on.”
As for how the proposed modernization would look in Saskatoon and the surrounding area, Enslin said it’s hard to tell but early numbers aren’t encouraging.
“We have approximately 500 members,” he said. “If we’re looking at half of the workforce by then, we’re talking about 250 to 300.”
He said nothing’s been announced for Saskatoon yet, but there are concerns amongst Canada Post workers in the city.
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