Canada - Contractors, low pay sends postal workers to the pi

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Contractors, low pay sends postal workers to the picket lines

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Don’t expect to receive your mail anytime soon; Fort McMurray’s postal workers are on strike.

On Wednesday morning, Canada Post informed local employees through a letter that beginning in October, parcel delivery will be contracted out to private, third-party companies.

Members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 736, which represents approximately fifty of the region’s postal workers, were outraged at the news and walked off the job.

The use of outside contractors appears to be the height of the union’s tolerance for working conditions in Fort McMurray.

“Enough is enough and we had to take a stand,” says Dana Gabriel, president of the local. “We’re really suffering under our contract out here.”

Gabriel says the issue boils down to wages and staffing, combined with Ottawa’s perceived inability to handle the challenges of a northern mining town brings.

The starting wage for postal workers is $19 per hour, without any northern living allowance. Purolator, which is 91% owned by Canada Post, offers higher wages and a northern living allowance to compensate.

Postal worker Laurie MacNeill says the only way her and her colleagues can afford Fort McMurray’s high cost of living is to work overtime and weekends. With the contractors, overtime won’t be an option.

In newer developments north of the Athabasca River, many postal workers have routes longer than counterparts in similar sized cities and work up to 12 hours per day. During Christmas, nearly 40 Canada Post employees from across Canada were brought in to meet demand.

“When we get new hires, they say, ‘I shouldn’t have to work this hard for this kind of money,’ and they’re gone,” says Gabriel. “We want pay matching the cost of living, we want routes that are eight hours long, because that eight hour day is what we signed up for.”

When the strike was announced, approximately 60% of houses in Fort McMurray had not received their mail. Rural workers in areas like Janvier and Anzac are part of a different union and did not strike.

Canada Post has defended the use of outside contractors, arguing they are necessary to meet national employment and delivery standards for Fort McMurray.

“What often happens is we would recruit and train people in Fort McMurray, then they’d leave two days later because they got a better job,” says Canada Post spokesperson Anick Losier. “Some weeks, we don’t have enough people to deliver everyday. In case of a parcel delivery, someone has paid good money to have it delivered on time.”

Losier did not specifically address concerns regarding pay, but said they would be looked at during negotiations. She dismissed union claims that contractors would remove up to nine jobs, calling their job security “ironclad.”

“Right now, we’re playing it by ear,” says Gabriel. “This is a public service we’re providing and we’re in this for the long haul.”

[cyclemech1]

Another of the saintly Moya's legacies, coming to RM a few years from now.