Union rally draws 1,000 to Canada Post office

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About 1,000 union members staged a loud rally in front of Winnipeg's downtown post office building on Thursday.

The members, from at least 10 different unions, marched along Graham Avenue in support of locked-out Canada Post workers and striking Air Canada workers.

They chanted "negotiate, don't legislate" and some carried signs criticizing Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as his government moves towards back-to-work legislation for the postal workers.

"We just heard a speech from the Canadian Nurses Union saying this is a fight for the middle class worker … and that postal workers are the first to hit the wall in Harper's agenda to bust public sector unions," CBC News reporter Marianne Klowak said just before 1 p.m.

Workers from various unions walked in solidarity on Thursday, demanding the federal government negotiate, not legislate strikers back to work.(Marjorie Dowhos/CBC)
The Harper government gave notice on Wednesday that it would table the back-to-work legislation for the postal workers on Monday.

"Workers are angry and they realize they've been betrayed by the government and that there was no intention on Canada Post's part to negotiate at all over the eight months we've been at it," said Bob Tyre, president of the Winnipeg local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW).

He worries it's a sign of things to come.

"There seems to be some secret plan going on with the Harper government and corporations and this just seems to be the first shot that they're firing at workers," Tyre said.

The workers had been holding rotating strikes in cities across the country, starting June 3 in Winnipeg. But on Tuesday, Canada Post decided to suspend operations and halt mail service, effectively locking the workers out.

'There seems to be some secret plan going on with the Harper government and corporations and this just seems to be the first shot that they're firing at workers.'—Bob Tyre, CUPW

The coporation said it had no choice after facing an "accelerating" decline in volumes and revenue, combined with an "inability to deliver mail on a timely and safe basis." Canada Post claimed the rotating strikes had caused losses approaching $100 million as of Tuesday.

The federal government had also given notice it was preparing to order Air Canada's striking customer service and sales staff back to work. They walked off the job Tuesday night.

During Thursday's rally in Winnipeg, word reached the crowd that Air Canada and the Canadian Auto Workers union had reached a tentative contract settlement.

The news elicited cheers from those at the rally.

"The unions see this as a victory for all of them in sending a strong message to the federal government to negotiate not legislate," Klowak reported.

Julie Guard, a labour studies professor at the University of Manitoba, said the Harper government is clearly taking its cue from the United States, which is trying to break public sector unions.

Guard said corporations in that country have funded think tanks that are shaping public opinion against unionized workers "and really promoting the idea that unions are bad, that unions are expensive, that we can't afford unions.

"And in fact, recent research on the other side suggests the opposite is the case."

Research shows the most equal societies are those that have the highest rate of unionization, Guard said.