Barry Eidlin, who studies the history of labour movements, told The Gazette that those interventions have set an expectation that the minister would intervene again, weakening Canada Post’s incentive to bargain with the union.
Yeah, this is what anyone paying attention thinks.
Surprise! The government needs to stay the hell out of back to work orders and make sure management isn’t getting paid while a strike or lockout is happening.
Make the Canada post senior management deliver mail door to door until they reach a deal.
They’d have a deal in hours.
I’d hope this would make an impact in their reelection chances, but I don’t think they were doing great with the union crowd to begin with and the Conservatives won’t be very good on these issues either.
You know what might? Interfering on the side of CUPW. Fire an exec or two for blocking negotiation resolution. It’s a crown corporation and they can do that as fat as I can tell. Scream from the rooftops that they’ve replaced them with labor friendly ones.
As much as that would be satisfying to the postal workers, I don’t think it would really solve a whole lot.
I am completely against back to work legislation but I do assume that’s where we’re headed, I think the best case scenario there is that it’s paired with the entire top level leadership being fired for letting it get to this point. General public gets their service back, cupw gets a deal sooner, and it makes the union membership at large confident that back to work legislation comes with consequences for the employer.
But, they’re NOT on the side of labour. They’re on the side of CHEAP labour. If anything, they are in opposition to labour interests.
For sure. I’m saying in case they decide to switch sides, or at least appear to for a bit.
The ambitions and interests of Trudeau might (for the sake of argument) be, “do whatever it takes to stay in office,” but the interests of the people who have the power to put him there are, “maximize my financial profits.” He is going to be thrown under the bus exactly so that these sorts of reforms don’t have to become a serious option for another ten years.
The continuity afforded by the workers continuing to work after their employment contract is up so they can “negotiate in good faith for a renewal without service interruption” is going to end. Employers will need to ensure business continuity despite a workforce that is absolutely out the door on the last day of the contract.
Who here expects to come to work the moment they don’t have a work contract? not me!
And, for those keeping score, the postal workers’ contract ended a year to the day before the strike. The employer had a full year on top of any prep work they must’ve been doing before then - heh heh - to hammer out a deal that they thought would keep skilled workers working.
You know what that would look like, if workers were escorted offsite the moment their employment contract ended? Well, it’d look like I.T and business. No workers, no mail (unlike now where critical stuff still goes).
It’d kinda look like this except a bit worse: staff would need to be trained, background-checked, organized and managed (by inexperienced leads). Usually union pay is lower than every comparable job, so staff would have, on average, less potential.
In short, a union strike a fucking year after their contract ran out is only a taste of what it should look like if and when unions can’t bargain in good faith toward a working goal, like they were doing here for a full year even after the contract ran out and they continued service without interruption, and they just absolutely walk off the site like every other job, where this kind of mail stoppage lasts for months and months before being effective again.
If Justin - and definitely when Milhouse mcPoutyPuss does - mandates staff back to work, an abrupt and seen-for-3-years walkout when the contract is over that will impair the post for months is what we should expect. Yay!
And this is happily hiding the fact that Canada Post is no more a for-profit business than the Ministry for Children and Families.
Ohh Justin did a Biden?!
When the state sides with the employer who can the pleb petition with their grievances?
