LABOR Tories forcing post office showdown By MIKE PHILLIPS OTTAWA — Canada Post Corporation sent another unmis- takable signal last week that the federal government is plotting a country-wide postal strike this summer. The message was delivered in what’s been described as a rare public admission by the cor- poration’s president Donald Landry that Canada Post is determined to.wrench massive concessions from the postal unions. The statement prompted Bob McGarry, president of the 20,000-member Letter Carriers Union of Canada, to warn that a strike in June would be unavoid- able unless the crown corporation drops its outrageous demands. McGarry’s view, May 19, was that the corporation was provok- ing a strike in the belief that it can garner public backing for its plans to privatize the post office. A Canada-wide postal strike, engineered by the federal Tory government as part of its neo- conservative agenda to privatize “Canada Post and deal the unions a crushing blow at the same time, has been a consistent theme of an information and publicity cam- paign the postal unions have been _ developing this spring under the auspices of the Canadian Labor- Congress. Both the LCUC and the 23,000-member Canadian Union of Postal Workers have been met at the bargaining table with a ruth- less program of concessions de- manded by Canada Post. Bitter frustration Bitter frustration has been the hallmark of the conciliation pro- cess both unions have been en- gaged in. The talks have moved at a normal pace for the LCUC, but have proven fruitless in terms of coming up with a satisfactory settlement. CUPW on the other hand has had to contend with protracted meetings projected well into the fall with management just as determined to gut the contract as it is to wreak havoc on the LCUC pact. The corporation has come after CUPW with 52 pages of conces- sions in its contract proposal, while the LCUC has had to stand up to Canada Post’s massive at- tack on letter carriers’ jobs. : Included among the conces- sions the corporation seeks to force out of the LCUC are: a wage freeze and elimination of the cost of living adjustment; the introduc- tion of a two-tiered wage system that would keep a 20 per cent spread between the wages of old and new workers; slashing the starting wage rate from $13.25 to $10.50 an hour; forcing letter car- riers to own and use their own cars; contracting mail delivery to non-union carriers in new deliv- Labor briefs ery areas; unrestricted layoffs, ending job security provisions in the current pact; and the introduc- tion of a daily minimum volume of mail, below which the carrier wouldn’t deliver. June is cited as the probable strike deadline because of the federal legislation governing con- tract talks in the post office. Con- ciliation talks between the cor- poration and the LCUC broke off earlier this month. Vicious business plan Conciliation commissioner Ken Swan is expected to hand his report to the labor minister early in June, and seven days from the minister’s receipt of the report the union would be in a legal strike position. The Tories and Canada Post management have a lot invested in their privatization drive which was ushered in with the current business plan that has viciously | set the wiping out of the post of- fice’s operating deficit by March of 1988. Wiping out the deficit has been repeatedly invoked by corporate management in an obvious bid to con the public into seeing the post office as a business, and not an essential service which the government should be obligated to ‘provide: : The business plan foresees the slashing of some 8,700 jobs in the PUTTING ZA envy NIZATION: VAS. #:97- Me THe Gite ON POSTAL SERVICE post office during the next five years; turning over the lucrative counter and wicket services in both town and country to private Dress rehearsal for postal strike? ST. JOHN — “‘It’s war — pure war from now on’, CUPW Atlantic Director Dar- rell Tingley said May 15 in the wake of a confrontation bet- ween inside postal workers and local management that could be a dress rehearsal for _ the Canada-wide battle ex- pected this summer. When 10 workers in the Rothesay Avenue sorting plant, here, were censured for protesting the presence of 15-20 part-time workers being trained to scab in the event ofa strike, the entire night shift walked off the job. They returned at 6 p.m. the next day after plant manager Don Maber read the riot act threatening to fire them if they didn’t go back to work. The workers won a partial victory by forcing manage- ment to agree to bring the po- tential scabs to the in-plant training area through a side door rather than through the work area. CUPW Fundy local presi- dent Jim Guthrie, who was hospitalized briefly, May 14 as a result of a mild concussion he received when a car knocked him down on the picket line, said the tension and anger in the plant built up because of management’s decision to bring the two groups into close contact with each other. The settlement of the pro- test, he said should ease ten- sions a bit. ‘“‘At least manage- ment won’t be flaunting them in our faces’’, Guthrie said. In Ottawa, May 15, Con- sumer and Corporate Affairs Minister Harvie Andre reaf- firmed a statement made the previous Tuesday by Canada Post Corporation president Don Lander that the corpora- tion intended to move the mail, “strike or no strike’’. Fightback saves Hayes Dana jobs THOROLD — The deter- mination of 1,200 Canadian Auto Workers members not to let Hayes Dana Corp., destroy 400 jobs forced the company to back down from union-busting plans. Management, in March had said it was shifting production from its chassis and drive train plants here to smaller satellite plants that it would operate on a non-union basis. The issue came up at the CAW’s collective bargaining and legislative conference, last month, where CAW president Bob White had warned the union would meet the com- pany’s plans head on. White called the Hayes Dana decision a ‘‘declaration of war’’ against the CAW and that the union intended to re- spond in kind. In a May 15 statement, CAW Local 676 plant chair- person Jerry Gilligan credited the membership’s decision to take firm action against the Hayes Dana plan as the reason for success, after two weeks of intensive talks with management. In the same CA W statement, White reported that manage- ment had withdrawn its ul- timatums demanding conces- sions and threats to transfer the work to satellite plants. U.S. Building Trades sign No-strike pact WASHINGTON — In what the U.S. News and World Re- port described as an ‘‘unusual pact’’, the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trade De- partment earlier this spring signed a no strike contract with the National Contractors Association. The NCA, representing some 20 heavy construction companies were given a deal with concessions ranging from “*flexible’’ work standards, to penalties for violating tne no strike pledge. Claiming to be a response to the proliferation of non-union contractors, the labor czars in the building trades department committed their members to a deal strip- ping them of their main bar- gaining weapon. Nova Scotia fed backs B.C. - HALIFAX — Delegates to the Nova Scotia Teachers Federation annual conference, May 16-17, unanimously voted to contribute $100,000 to their counterparts in British Colum- bia fighting the Vander Zalm government’s union busting legislation, Bill 20. The donation will go into a national teachers’ defence fund that the B.C. teachers will be able to use in their fight. Bill 20 makes membership in the B.C. teachers federation non-com- pulsory and seeks to dismantle the union by setting up a ‘“‘col- lege’ or professional associa- tion with government repre- sented on its board with the power to discipline teachers. The Nova Scotia Teachers also voted to divest itself of some $650,000 in B.C. Government bonds and de- cided to contribute more than $11,000 to a recently estab- lished fund on behalf of the Af- rican Teachers Association of South Africa. 6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 27, 1987 contractors during the next de-— cade; massive closure of rural post offices; and the substitution of group mail boxes for home deliv- — ery in new urban subdivisions. Yet it will insist on annual rate hikes. Meanwhile the corporation is said to be hiring part-time work- ers to keep the post office running in the event of a strike. It is also rumored to be building and/or upgrading helicopter pads on Canada Post property in case mail — has to be airlifted from strike- bound sorting stations and post offices. It is clear to most postal work- ers the corporation, (fronting for the federal Tory government), wants to provoke a strike. Some workers even suggest the hard ball being played in the LCUC talks is aimed at putting the letter carriers on the street and provok- ing CUPW into an illegal strike to set the stage for massive firings to satisfy the business plan objec- tives. Labor analysts are already predicting that a government- inspired postal strike could un- leash a mobilization of forces against the Mulroney government that would make the Gainers struggle pale in comparison. Throughout the talks the postal unions have all been in close con- tact with each other through the CLC. The congress, which adopted a program at its last convention to counter the corporate game plan with the workers’ agenda, will undoubtedly have a large and strong role to play in marshalling the forces and solidarity that will be needed in the event of such a0 historic and decisive confronta- tion.