Pride events are a beautiful and complex union of celebration and resistance. Over the decades, Pride festivals and parades have done so much for visibility, community organizing, and bringing LGBTQ issues and achievements into the spotlight.
Summer Day Camp registration at Mirabel and Mascouche has now closed. If you have received notice from Mascouche, that your child or children were accepted into the Summer Camp, please call our Quebec Coordinator, Melanie Belisle to confirm your registration: 1-888-433-2885
Whether we are cleaners, postal and delivery workers, medical dispatchers or in other important roles, CUPW members have been on the front lines performing vital services to the public during the COVID-19 crisis. The National Executive Board has authorized the purchase of non-medical masks for each of our members. CUPW Locals will be receiving shipments of the masks over the coming weeks; however, distribution will take some time given the large volume of the order.
Over 50 years ago, American Civil Rights Leader Dr. Martin Luther King said, “A riot is the language of the unheard.” This quote explains and underscores what we are seeing in the media in response to the police killing of a Black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers is saddened and outraged by the recent violent attacks against Black individuals regionally, nationally and internationally. We are also deeply concerned that last week Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a Black-Indigenous woman, fell more than 20 floors to her death while members of the Toronto police force were present.
Are you grappling with how we are going to have to change our society, workplaces, and systems going forward post-pandemic? The Global Labour University is offering a free course, online, on your own time, to think about ways to implement pro-human, pro-planetary change. No previous formal education is required, however you will need a working knowledge of English.
In the coming weeks, members will receive the long-awaited new issue of Perspective, and should immediately notice that it looks a little different. For one, we’ve retired our old tabloid and relaunched as a magazine. More importantly, your Perspective is now much more than the Trustee’s report. It is now filled with articles and information about CUPW’s major campaigns, issues, committees, and so much more.
When COVID-19 abates, there will be a great struggle over what policies and ideas take centre-stage. The public is certainly grateful to frontline workers right now – whether they are cleaners, couriers, medical dispatchers, postal workers, health care workers, or others on the frontlines. We must leverage this support to demand policies from governments that will actually help our society and working people.
Megan Whitfield embodied all of these characteristics and so much more, and the void her passing has left at CUPW, and within the labour movement, will never be fully filled.
**Montreal, St-Jerome and Ste-Therese Locals** Quebec summer day camps will open as of June 22 across the province, Quebec Premier Francois Legault announced on Thursday May 21, 2020. Camp groups will be smaller in size, and have smaller counsellor-to-child ratios, with physical distancing directives in place. We know this information is coming late, but want you to be able to register your school age child for this summer program.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to all the members of the committee for giving us the opportunity to present the point of view of our members in these extraordinary and worrisome times. I first want to acknowledge that I am speaking to you from unceded Anishinabe territory.
Support Postal Banking - Download and Sign the Petition
Canada needs a postal bank. Thousands of rural towns and villages in our country do not have a bank, but many of them have a post office that could provide financial services. As well, nearly two million Canadians desperately need an alternative to payday lenders. A postal bank could be that alternative. Download and sign the petition urging the Government of Canada to instruct Canada Post to add postal banking, with a mandate for financial inclusion.
On Wednesday, January 15th, the first of three scheduled days of bargaining between CUPW and Canada Post took place with the intent of achieving negotiated collective agreements for both the Urban Operations and Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers units.
Canada Post deducted union dues on your December 31, 2024 pay, representing the dues from pay period # 27 (December 2024). Your January 16th pay will include dues owed for pay period # 1 (January 2025). These two pay periods represent dues at the 2023 rate of $90.61.
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers becoming members of CUPW in 2004, CUPW published “Road to Equality”, a book about the courage, determination and solidarity of the Suburban Mail Carriers.
There has been an important development in our ongoing efforts to secure negotiated collective agreements for Urban and RSMC members. In addition to the work being done through the Inquiry Commission, a parallel three-day negotiation process will also be taking place on January 15, 16, and 17. William Kaplan, who was appointed by the Minister of Labour Steven MacKinnon to carry out the Commission, will be taking on the role of Mediator.
In our recent bulletins, we have talked a lot about sections 107 and 108 of the Canada Labour Code. These were the sections of the Code that the Government invoked to end our strike and force us to return to work last December. Unlike the back-to-work legislation we have been subject to in the past, the section 107 order was not debated or voted on in Parliament. The Liberal government made this decision alone.
The beginning of 2025 is marked by a period of extreme cold across the country. After a hectic autumn at Canada Post, and after having their right to strike denied by Minister MacKinnon in mid-December, postal workers were greeted back to work by milder weather during the holiday period. Mother Nature may have a few pleasant surprises in store for us during the winter of 2025, but we need to be prepared for the cold temperatures ahead and take all the necessary steps to work safely.
A new year has begun, and with it, the Union faces new challenges and new opportunities. The first five months of 2025 are shaping up to be particularly important. Public hearings for Commissioner William Kaplan’s Industrial Inquiry Commission are scheduled to begin January 27 and 28. While the hearings will take place in Ottawa, proceedings will be livestreamed for wider viewing. Mr. Kaplan is due to publish his final report on May 15.
Hello all, hope you are well,
We spoke with National Labour Relations this morning about reported violations of the collective agreement and here is where we stand for now...
The Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) ordered postal workers to return to work December 17, 2024, in a clear violation of our Charter rights. We want to praise all postal workers across the country who made huge sacrifices, holding strong on picket lines for good jobs, fair wages, and a strong public post office.
This January, we are celebrating the Tamil Heritage Month in Canada. It is a special time to commemorate and value the significant contributions of Canadians of Tamil origin to our country. Tamil Canadians have positively impacted Canada's cultural, economic, social, and political landscape.