CUPW at the Vancouver, Regional, and National levels all strongly recommend that members deliver a resoundingly strong NO vote to the corporation’s lousy “offer”.
After eighteen months of bad-faith negotiating from the employer, unprecedented Government intervention into our Collective Bargaining and Charter Right-to-Strike, the Federal Government, Canada Post’s main shareholder, has decided to implement the rarely used, one-time ability under the Canada Labour Code to force our membership to vote on the corporation’s lousy offer.
Workers understand that the union cares more about the welfare and interests of its members than our employer does – especially an employer already committed to implementing major restructuring. A strong NO vote will help negotiations along and will send a strong message to the negotiator when this matter inevitably gets sent to arbitration.
If we Vote No, the government cannot make us vote again. We will continue our legal strike action with an OT ban for now. The corporation is still able to legally lock us out. If and when this happens, we will inevitably be ordered back-to-work. This will happen either through the government’s new magic Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code (which is being contested in the Supreme Court) or by working with the Conservatives to pass Back-to-Work Legislation. Either of these ways eventually lead to arbitration. As Kaplan himself noted, Interest arbitration is a very “conservative process, one that generally shies away from imposing structural change” (p.83). This is why the corporation sought every possible way to avoid it. The arbitrator will use this offer as the lowest basis point in negotiations and will also have to consider how strongly members voted against accepting this “offer”. If it is a resoundingly strong NO vote, the arbitrator will have to move further away from this offer. In other words, the stronger our NO vote is, the better we will come out in negotiations.
In the coming days, volunteers from our Vancouver Local will be calling you to ensure that you were able to successfully register your email to vote as well as provide you with answers to any questions or concerns you might have regarding this future-defining decision.
If you have missed our call we will try and call again. Alternatively, you can contact the hall at 604 685-6581 Ext. 1 or email [email protected]
In Solidarity,
Local Executive Committee of Vancouver Local 846
