Workers marched across René-Lévesque Blvd. W, sporting their neon green uniform jackets and blowing into noisemakers.
Think of Canada Post as an essential service, not a business, striking workers told The Gazette Friday as a group of them marched through downtown Montreal in a show of visibility, two weeks into a strike that has halted postal service across the country.
About 100 workers started the march at the Bridge depot, which neighbours Victoria Bridge. For much of the action, they marched across René-Lévesque Blvd. W., sporting their neon green uniform jackets and blowing into noisemakers.
“Canada Post’s vision is a bit like it was a private company,” union representative David Vallée told The Gazette. But “Canada Post is a public service that serves each citizen every day.”
Canada Post should be thinking of new ways to serve the public, he said, instead of places where it can make cuts. He suggested the corporation offer banking services, as many postal services around the world already do. Canada Post workers could check in on seniors, he said, as many postal workers already go door-to-door.
“No one asks whether a skating rink or a swimming pool or a library is profitable. It’s a service for taxpayers,” postal worker Stefan Petersen said.
“All the other companies that deliver parcels, they’re just delivering parcels, which makes more money. We’re a public service that delivers regular mail to whomever.”
Postal worker Miles Farrell said he objected to the focus on profitability altogether.
He criticized media coverage of the strike as “highly focused on the consumer aspect, the capitalistic aspect of us delivering parcels, when it’s kind of neglected that Canada Post is a Crown corporation that has a duty to serve all Canadians delivering the mail.”
Workers shouldn’t take a hit for the corporation’s failures, Adrian Mottram told The Gazette.
“I don’t make a living doing this job. I love doing this job,” said Mottram, who makes $22 an hour. People paid far more than he is should be the ones held responsible for the corporation’s performance, he said.
Mottram started work a year and a half ago. Since then, he has been an on-call employee, meaning he isn’t guaranteed work every week.
He said Canada Post offered him a permanent contract Nov. 8. But on Nov. 15, the day workers went on strike, he got a call the contract had been cancelled.
Mottram said he thought his contract had been cancelled to “intimidate me to put pressure on the shop steward to take any contract.”
The union says those actions are “merely a scare tactic” and that it “urges members not to panic.”
Postal workers told The Gazette their pay hasn’t kept up with inflation and that they objected to changes in scheduling and the increase of part-time workers.
Canada Post’s reputation as a good employer has “disintegrated throughout the years,” Farrell said.
Patrick Fortin, who has worked for Canada Post since 2016, said he’s seen a “degradation” in pay relative to the cost of living since he started.
He said he was also concerned with the corporation’s plans to hire more part-time workers. He said that would create a two-tier system in which full-time employees work with better conditions than part-timers, putting pressure on all employees.
Canada Post has changed delivery schedules in recent years, Vallée said, meaning many employees are working later shifts than before.
For “families with young kids in school, in daycare … it’s a lot harder to pick them up,” he said.
Generally, the striking employees told The Gazette they felt they had the support of the public.
As they marched down René-Lévesque, the workers were greeted with supportive honks.
“Over the last few days, the honks have gotten louder and more frequent,” Mottram said.