By Paul Weinberg
TORONTO, Dec 5 1997 (IPS)

Some 46,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) ended a two-work strike Thursday after being ordered back to work by parliament. But they vowed to continue to disrupt mail deliveries by misdirecting government and corporate mail.

CUPW president Darrell Tingley said his members never had a fighting chance of negotiating a fair collective agreement with the state-run Canada Post.

Canada has a lengthy history of postal workers being ordered to end strike action and this one was no exception with individual workers facing fines of 700 U.S. dollars a day with steeper penalties for their leaders and the entire union.

The government imposed a three-year wage deal which includes annual increases of 1.5 per cent, 1.75 and 1.9 per cent in the legislation – less generous than what Canada Post was offering during its talks with CUPW, has been described as tying the hands of the third-party arbitrator.

It leaves Ottawa open to charges of “union-busting,” says an editorial in the Liberal leaning Toronto Star. “It has denied the union the opportunity to make the case that it should share in Canada Post?s productivity gains.”

The imposition of a wage deal in a back-to-order law “is extremely rare and arguably unfair,” says Gene Swimmer, a professor in public administration at Carleton University in Ottawa, because it tampers with the notion of an unbiased arbitration process.

Swimmer suggests that CUPW and the Liberal party – which has governed Canada most of the time since the Second World War – “have a history of not getting along.” He also fears that Canada Post is headed for another uncertain period of labour relations, similar to a point in the 1980s when the union members registered hundreds of thousands of grievances against their employer within the collective bargaining process.

With the strike lost, CUPW is vowing to let people send letters for free and corporate and government mailings to become mysteriously “lost.”

“I don’t know where the mail will go,” said CUPW’s Tingley. “Something meant for Vancouver could end up going to Taiwan. Machines can make mistakes.”

Trent University politicial scientist professor Robert Campbell says, however, that CUPW must be “cautious” about upsetting the Canadian public with its post-strike protests, especially during the pre-Christmas period.

In a media-driven society such as Canada, it is not enough for unions to demonstrate their muscle by marshalling their members for a lengthy strike, with the purpose of shutting down the employer until the latter gives in, he says. In the case of Canada Post, the advent of electronic mail, voice mail and fax machines has made many people less dependent on the mail.

One of CUPW’s concerns during the negotiations has been Canada Post’s desire to increase the number of part-time positions and the workload of letter carriers. The union charged this would lead to the disappearance of 4,000 full-time jobs over the long term, which management denied.

Canada Post, which conducted its own television advertising campaign during the strike, had the advantage of articulate ex- media people speaking on its behalf. In contrast, notes Campbell, the union people who spent long hours in negotiations with management were also the same representatives talking to reporters afterwards.

“You had the same guys who were exhausted and hadn’t slept coming up with phrases.” On the other hand, says Campbell, the various unions representing the striking teachers in Ontario managed to gain majority public support in their recent fall battle with the Conservative provincial government – and even raise serious questions about the state of education – because they relied on attractive spokespersons whose primary role was to publicly sell their cause, particularly to parents.

Swimmer is skeptical that postal workers can overcome their public relations problem in Canada and that is why Liberals are managing to get away with their tough line.

“There has never been any sympathy for postal workers,” he says. “They are viewed as being well paid for the skill requirements of the job.”

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