PV Quebec Bureau
Delivery delays, increased workloads, irregular work schedules and increased use of motor vehicles.
One year after an arbitrator rejected a “national grievance” from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), Canada Post is accelerating the implementation of its Separate Sort and Delivery (SSD) system. Several Montreal facilities have already been transformed.
In some postal facilities, such as Saint-Hubert on Montreal’s South Shore, a six-week mobilization of workers on the work floor forced the employer to back down on the issue of scheduling. It’s a small victory that has inspired many others.
With SSD, Canada Post is taking its cue from the US-based e-commerce giant Amazon, with the ultimate goal of destroying the synergy of the work floor. Currently, each letter carrier sorts and prepares their own mail, then goes out and delivers it. Under the SSD system, a “Router” will spend all day inside and sort the mail for several other routes, with letter carriers spending more time outside and less time inside. Each letter carrier becomes a flexible, solitary unit, assigned to one or, in the medium term, several routes.
Financially, it’s hard to see how such a complex, billion-dollar transformation can be truly beneficial. Since its implementation, hundreds of postal workers have resigned from a workforce which already had a desperately poor retention – it’s a trend which augurs the worst for the public postal service.
What’s worse is that SSD does not mean even provide a reduction in delivery times, but actually adds an extra 24 hours for all mail including official documents, passports and so on. The “separation” takes place over two days – one day for sorting and one day for delivery – while the current process only takes one working day. This is a far cry from the “service to Canadians” which Canada Post’s latest mandate review describes as being at the company’s heart.
The introduction of SSD in the Montreal region has involved major schedule changes. Many letter carriers are seeing their workday extended into the evening – this makes it difficult to reconcile work and family life, which is why many chose to work as letter carriers in the first place.
The change also raises health and safety issues. Canada Post’s busiest period is also the months with the shortest days, and every minute spent in the dark adds to the dangers workers face. The company is aware of crime-related risks to its workers and has identified “hot spots.” Still, letter carriers know they will have to be particularly vigilant in these new working conditions – they also know that their vulnerability could lead to sexist discrimination through “risk management.”
In environmental terms, SSD means more trucks on the road with over $200 million to be invested in new vehicles alone. Canada Post boasts of being “carbon neutral” but it’s not because it has reduced its motorized fleet or improved its energy efficiency – the company simply purchases carbon credits.
In response to deteriorating working conditions, CUPW has made SSD’s withdrawal central to its demands in the current round of collective bargaining.
While the negotiators are in Ottawa, postal workers are mobilizing – everywhere, we’re seeing a gradual increase in pressure tactics. The first major demonstration, involving several hundred letter carriers, took place on the evening of June 5 in Saint-Hubert on the South Shore. The post office was surrounded in solidarity with those still working inside. Representatives from the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (Quebec Federation of Labour, FTQ) were on site and pledged inter-union solidarity with the CUPW struggle.
While union mobilization is important, history has shown that the fight for public services is first and foremost a political struggle. Without political support, the fight rests entirely on the shoulders of the workers – a situation which cannot lead to significant gains.
Everyone who cares about the postal service and its workers needs to pressure elected officials to stop SSD and extend the company’s mandate so that it can raise additional revenue. This is the goal of CUPW’s Delivering Community Power campaign, which advocates for expanding the post office to include public postal banking and additional services for communities across the country.
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