NEWS RELEASE about LabourDirect Action posted on June 20, 2011 by Harsha W.
Postal Workers Occupy Conservative Offices in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg
Postal workers and allies occupy Conservative MP offices in support of strike and against back-to-work legislation
Occupation of Andrew Saxton’s office in North Vancouver
Postal workers occupy MPs offices
June 20, 2011
Postal workers and community support groups in Vancouver, Edmonton, and Winnipeg have occupied Conservative Party MP offices today at 10:00am PDT. The occupations are taking place to highlight back to work legislation that the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have characterized as “unnecessary, unjust, and counterproductive.” The legislation is scheduled to be tabled today.
Mike Palacek, a postal worker from Vancouver and one of the individuals occupying North Vancouver MP Andrew Saxton’s office, said, “The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2007 that collective bargaining is a right protected under the Charter. This back to work legislation quashes free collective bargaining and erodes those democratic rights that the Charter protects.”
On Tuesday June 14, Canada Post locked out its nearly 50,000 urban postal operations employees after 12 days of rotating strikes by the union.
“We’ve done everything in our power to achieve a negotiated settlement with as little disruption to the public as possible,” Palacek continued. “Canada Post’s response has been to suspend all of its services, lock us out, and wait for back to work legislation.”
“Postal workers told Canada Post that we would end our rotating strikes if they would re-instate our collective agreement and join us at the bargaining table. They refused”
“Today we are saying to the Canadian government and to Canada Post that the only way a just resolution to the labour dispute will be achieved is through negotiations at the bargaining table. Postal workers and the communities we serve are united in opposition to any legislation that takes away our rights to free collective bargaining.”
For more information, please contact Aaron Spires, 778-239-4997.
The site for the Vancouver local of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated. Please visit the main Media Co-op website to learn more about the organization.
Comments
postal workers
I support postal workers 100% - this back to work legislation is just the WRONG thing to do! When Harper and his croonies have been given the power to do something nasty to Unionized workers they will do it - trust me folks when I say this is just the beginning of returning back to the days when there were no rights to strike and wages were below what you could survive on - dirty 30's - will this be called the dirty 20's????
al arsenault