Speech by Deborah Bourque, National President to Quebec City Local Membership Meeting

National President, Deborah Bourque, holding Quebec City closure protest t-shirt at Quebec City local membership meeting.

First I want to thank all of you for being here today. This meeting will go down in history as a very important event.

Because today is the beginning of our struggle to save more than 300 jobs in Quebec City.and perhaps many more thousands of jobs in other communities.

We will save these jobs for ourselves.because we are the workers who have made the immense profits for Canada Post Corporation and we deserve to share in the benefits instead of having our jobs destroyed.

And we will save these jobs for the future generations of young Quebecers who need and deserve to have decent employment opportunitieshere in Quebec City.

Brothers and Sisters, we face a difficult struggle.

I have not come here to make you feel comfortable.

I have not come here to tell you that it will be easy to force Canada Post to overturn this unjust and unwise decision.

I have come here to work with you and your local and regional leadership to plan a campaign which will save your jobs and which will keep mail processing here in Quebec City where it should be.

But this will not be an easy task.

It will require all of us, every one in this room, to be active in this struggle, our struggle.

It will require all of the other postal workers in Quebec City, those who could not be here tonight, to support us and be active.

It will require the support of workers in other parts of the Quebec Region..and representatives of the regional office are here today and can talk about how we will mobilize that support throughout the region.

And it will require the support and resources of the National Union. And I am here to tell you today that the National Union will be organizing support for you in locals all across Canada and Quebec and we will stand side by side with you until Canada Post management decides to keep your jobs in Quebec City.

We did not wait until this meeting before we started to take action to save the jobs in Quebec City.

As soon as we received notice about management's plans the local national and regional offices of the union began to analyze the situation, we demanded more information from Canada Post and started to develop strategies.

And we all said, we won't let this post office close.

I wrote to Moya Greene, the new President of Canada Post. And I told Moya Greene that the Canadian Union of Postal Workers was going to fight their decision to destroy 300 jobs in Quebec.

I told her we would fight this decision because it was bad for postal workers. I reminded her that it was postal workers who are responsible for generating more than $700 million in profits during the past 5 years alone.

I told her we would fight this decision because it was bad for the community of Quebec. Young people need to grow up in a community where they can see a future for themselves. In this region we have mills that are closing. We have cutbacks in government services. And now Canada Post wants to destroy 300 jobs so they can process Quebec City mail in Montreal. I told Moya Greene the answer to that is "No"

I also told Moya Greene that we would fight this plan because it is bad for the postal service. It makes no sense, no sense at all to put Quebec City mail on trucks, drive it to the west end of Montreal, process it and then put it back on trucks to drive it back to Quebec City.

And I reminded Moya Greene that the mandate of Canada Post is not only to make more and more money. There are three aspects to the Mandate of Canada Post and they were adopted unanimously by parliament in 1981.

One aspect is to improve postal services. We have done that, thanks to the effort of 54,000 postal workers.

The second aspect is to be financially self-sufficient. We have exceeded this objective year after year.

And the third and most important aspect of the mandate is to improve labour relations.

The decision of Canada Post Corporation to attack the jobs and postal services in Quebec City is a declaration of war against our membership and our union.

And when management of Canada Post declares war on the membership our union knows what to do. We fight back. We don't beg for mercy. We don't plead for buy-outs. We fight back to save our jobs.

For ourselves. For our community. And for our children.

So Brothers and Sisters we are here today to start the fight-back to save our jobs.

And there will be many elements to this fight-back.

First we must organize the support of all of the members here in Quebec City.

We must also organize support from postal workers in the rest of the Quebec Region and all across Canada and Quebec.

We will be organizing support from the community here in Quebec.

From the labour movement.

And from all of our allies in community organizations.

We will gain the support of the community leaders and the political leadership in Quebec.

We will gain the support of the national politicians.

We will explain to all of these groups that this decision is bad for everyone. For postal workers. For the public and businesses that use Canada Post service. And for the post office itself.

We will explain that the decision to move mail processing to Montreal is unwise and unnecessary.

And how many times have postal workers seen management make bad decisions only to reverse these decisions later on, after the damage was done.

We saw them contract out parcel delivery.and destroy jobs, only to contract it back in later.

We saw them close retail post offices in the 1980sand then in the 1990s they decide that the retail offices were their biggest asset.

We saw them wipe out mail processing jobs in smaller centers and consolidate the work.only to reverse themselves later and transfer the work back to the smaller locations.

We saw them move from loose loading to monotainers to move parcels and wipe out jobs. Ten years later they decided to go back to loose loading.

This time we are determined not to let them make this mistake.

Across Canada and Quebec, in every local and at every meeting that postal workers have with management, the message must be the same. "Hands off Quebec" "Keep the jobs in Quebec." It is time to put the interests of Postal Workers first.

We are not only going to fight Canada Post in the political field, we are also going to use every legal right that we have in our collective agreement.

And when it comes to technological changes we have lots of rights.

We have these rights because we went on strike to achieve them in 1975 and we went on strike to preserve them in 1978, 1987, 1991 and 1997.

In every round of bargaining, including our last round in 2003, Canada Post Management has tried to weaken our collective agreement protections on technological change.

One thing that we have learned in the last few days is that the new management of Canada Post does not seem to understand our collective agreement.

They do not understand the rights of postal workers and the union. And they do not understand their obligations to deal with the union when it comes to technological changes.

I also want to say a few words about some of the things that we can expect from management in the next few weeks.

Already management is telling postal workers in other parts of the country that postal workers in Quebec are happy with the plant closure. One manager has said that he was receiving letters from CUPW members thanking him.

We will also hear Moya Greene tell us that we do not have to worry because no one will lose their jobs. Ms Greene never talks about the temporary workers. Perhaps she does not know that they exist.

She never talks about the part-time workers who want to go full-time and the fact that their dreams will be destroyed if Canada Post is allowed to proceed.

And of course she never mentions the destruction of the technical services jobs.

Moya Greene seems to think that all the inside postal workers in Quebec would be very happy to put on letter carrier uniforms and deliver mail.

Is this what our senior members should get for their many years of service? Is this what we deserve for making Canada Post the most efficient postal service in the world?

And what about our rights to be consulted and to negotiate technological changes?

Instead of information all we get are denials and evasion. No one will tell us when this decision was made. No one will tell us how much money Canada Post expects to save as a result of destroying jobs here in Quebec City.

And no one at Canada Post will even take the responsibility for making the decision.

When Moya Greene met with the CUPW regional executive a few weeks ago our union representatives asked her if it was true that Canada Post Corporation was planning to close the Quebec City plant. And what was her answer?

She said she did not know. Can we believe that the President of Canada Post does not know of plans to destroy 300 jobs in Quebec City, close the processing plant and ship mail back and forth from Quebec to Montreal?

Is this possible? Or is someone not telling the truth?

And what about the official notices from Canada Post Corporation to the Union.

On July 14 Canada Post provided us with our first technological change notice. It did not mention anything about Quebec City closing. It said only that Canada Post was planning to study the mail processing network.

Then two weeks later, after Parliament has recessed for the summer, we get the notice detailing a two year plan to transfer operations from Quebec to Montreal.

Does anyone believe that someone dreamed up this entire plan between July 14th and August 3rd. Or is someone not telling the truth?

Can we believe anything that we hear from the management of Canada Post Corporation?

In the next days and weeks you, and the other workers in Quebec City, are going to hear all sorts of things from Canada Post Management.

Even while they are refusing to answer our questions at the national level and while they are refusing to consult with us in good faith, here in Quebec they will be telling you all sorts of things. They will spread rumours. They will tell some people one thing and tell others differently. They will try and divide you.

They will do this because they want to create division within the membership and between the members and the union.

They will do this because they know that when postal workers are united we are very very strong.

And sisters and brothers, I can tell you that during the next days and weeks you will see that postal workers in every city are united in their support for your struggle to keep your jobs and to keep postal services here in Quebec City.

Tomorrow your local and regional officers and myself are going to hold a press conference to denounce these plans of Canada Post.

And at this press conference we will not be alone.

Henri Masse, the President of the Quebec Federation of Labour, will join us. He will be there to express the active support of the labour movement in all of Quebec.

Already we have the support of many powerful allies. The Bloc Quebecois supports us. Many local political leaders support us. And this is only the very beginning.

We need much more than this and we are going to get it.

We will be meeting with everyone we can to organize support for our struggle.

Over the years postal workers have showed our solidarity with many others in their struggles. We have supported other unions, teachers, community organizations, womens groups, peace groups, and many many more.

Now we will go to our allies and we will ask for their support.

But most of all sisters and brothers, we need you. We need you to participate. We need you to spread the word to your friends and your families.

We need you to attend all of the meetings and rallies and demonstrations that we will be having. We need you to talk to your fellow workers and to get them to participate.

We need everyone in this struggle.

Because together, sisters and brothers, we are going to succeed. We will keep these jobs in Quebec City because that is the right thing to do.

It's the right thing for postal workers and for this community.

Together we can and we will win.

Thank you for listening.


Deborah Bourque
National President
Canadian Union of Postal Workers