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UPDATED: Powell River postal workers join rotating strike

Employees set up picket line at Joyce Avenue location
canada post
ON STRIKE: Canadian Union of Postal Workers in Powell River were on the picket line Friday, November 9, as rotating strikes continue across the country while contract negotiations with Canada Post have stalled. Kelly Keil photo

Postal workers in Powell River walked off the job on Friday, November 9, to join rotating strike action by Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW).

The sense among local members is that they will be out again on Tuesday, November 13.

About 45 employees were on the picket line after the call from national headquarters to local 808 president Leanne Beauregard early in the morning.

“They’re rotating strikes,” said Beauregard. “We’re not walking out because we want to stop the mail. We’ve been in negotiations with the corporation for over a year. Since the end of December the rural routers have been without a contract and urban inside workers and the letter carriers have been without a contract since January.”

Beauregard said there seems to be support from the public at the post office at the intersection of Joyce Avenue and Alberni Street with drivers honking car horns and people dropping off coffee, sandwiches and cookies.

“Some people don’t understand but they’re not disgruntled,” said Beauregard.

The rotating strikes started on October 22. Prime minister Justin Trudeau said he wants both sides to arrive at a significant resolution soon or the government will look at all options to bring it to an end before Christmas.

Beauregard said postal workers’ demands are not just about money and benefits. Among them is forced overtime, she added.

“We went for about a year and a half where we have forced overtime every week,” said Beauregard. “What that means is we would do our own routes and then we would have to do one piece of somebody else’s route who wasn’t able to work because of injury.”

She said carriers are being injured on the job due to overburdening weights.

“The parcel volumes have tripled, quadrupled in the last few years, which has made Canada Post very profitable,” said Beauregard, “but we’re asking for help with the weights to move things around, whether it’s better gear or more relay boxes for the letter carriers out on route.”

Since their last contract, workplace injury has gone up 40 per cent, according to Beauregard.  

“We have more injuries than the longshoremen did in the last couple of years,” she said, “just because of the work we’re doing and how it’s changing.”