The latest sign of the drive to privatize anything that moves is the impending service cuts at Canada Post. According to the big business media, the crown corporation operates at a loss, so the only solution is to close more outlets, reduce deliveries (possibly to just three days a week), consolidate sorting centres, and fire thousands of employees. The public will be the big loser through this process, but it's also hard to imagine how the postal system could survive such a body blow.
Anyone who pays attention to postal workers and their union will realize that Canada Post management and the Tories are blowing plenty of smoke about the state of this vital service. These rumours and proposals come not long before the current collective bargaining agreement expires, conveniently just in time to try to bulldoze the workers who actually deliver our mail into submission. "They're cutting the link with the public and the citizens of the country," as CUPW national president Denis Lemelin warns.
The union points out that prior to its recent expensive "postal transformation," Canada Post made big profits for some 18 consecutive years. Was the "transformation" plan a scam to help the Harper government sell off Canada Post? And if that happens, does anyone really believe that UPS and FedEx will get packages delivered more efficiently and cheaper? In fact, these private operators already use Canada Post to ship items to smaller centres, because they lack the infrastructure to do it themselves. Just imagine the skyrocketing price increases if these transnationals take over the postal system.
To save our reasonably affordable and timely way to send mail across the country, we need to mobilize quickly against this threat.
No comments:
Post a Comment