Introduction
I had no intention of doing any research concerning the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). However, when a postal worker and an alleged socialist, Kiri Vadivelu (member of the alleged socialist organization Socialist Action) claimed the following:
By weakening CUPW, Ettinger [CEO of Canada Post] is attacking the very bench mark CUPW sets for fair wages in the entire delivery sector. This is nothing short of class warfare….
Postal workers set the benchmark for fair wages and rights in this industry. Attacking our union isn’t just an attack on CUPW—it’s an attack on every logistics worker in Canada.
, I began to do a bit of research on the CUPW’s position concerning the fairness of collective agreements.
Since in this blog I have often referred to particular union reps referring to collective agreements as fair in some way, I thought it would be useful to provide further examples of this rhetoric to substantiate the view that unions function as ideologues for the continued existence of employers–even if the unions are independent of the power of particular employers and hence represent independently the workers in relation to the particular employer of the workers.
I have already provided a series of examples in this series on their view of the fairness of collective agreements and collective bargaining, implied or expressed explicitly, specifically the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) (the largest union in Canada) and Unifor (the largest union of workers who work for employers in the private sector) (see Fair Contracts (or Fair Collective Agreements): The Ideological Rhetoric of Canadian Unions, Part One and Fair Contracts or Collective Agreements: The Ideological Rhetoric of Canadian Unions, Part Three: Unifor (Largest Private Union in Canada)).
The Rhetoric of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW): Fair Contracts or Fair Collective Agreements or Fair Deals
I now proceed to provide evidence for the ideological role of CUPW (about 55,000 members). The workers of this union went on strike in later 2024 and were forced, through back-to-work legislation, to return to work. Although all workers should provide support for such striking workers and oppose such back-to-work legislation, the situation does not justify using the union rhetoric of “fair contract” or “fair agreement” or similar cliches.
- From December 19, 2024 (https://www.cupwvancouver.org/message-from-secretary-treasurer/ ):
Message from Secretary Treasurer
Dear Members,
I would personally like to thank each and every one of you who made it out to the picket lines to support our Members who have struggled through the past 4 and a half weeks, showing our strength against the employer in our fight for a fair contract at the bargaining table. Unfortunately, we did not achieve our goals at the bargaining table, and the CIRB has ordered us back to work until such time as a Collective Agreement can be properly negotiated, with negotiations needing to be completed by May. …
With the highest respect, and solidarity,
Kevin Biggs
Secretary Treasurer, Vancouver Local 846
2. From December 14, 2024 (https://www.cupw-sttp.ca/12-14-2024to_all_postal_workers_cupw_toronto_local_members):
To all:** POSTAL WORKERS CUPW TORONTO LOCAL MEMBERS
AN EMERGENCY RALLY CALL FOR A FAIR CONTRACT AND TO PROTECT WORKERS’ RIGHTS …we need everyone to stand up for our rights to negotiate a fair contract at the bargaining table while withholding our work.
For over a month, we have been striving to reach a fair contract and settle our disputes, but Canada Post Corporation continues to refuse to bargain fairly and in good faith.
3. From Jeffery Tram · CBC News · Posted: Nov 15, 2024 ( https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/canada-post-regina-saskatoon-union-picket-line-1.7384592):
Canada Post workers in Regina, Saskatoon hit the picket line
Union representing 55,000 workers says workers want a fair contract
“We’re all out on strike today looking for a fair bargain, collective agreement,” said Jeremy Thomas, president of CUPW Local 820. …
“We are fighting for fair benefits and fair wages,” Thomas said. “Our wages have not gone up with the cost of inflation.”
4. From July 7, 2023 (https://www.cupw.ca/en/cupw-supports-ilwu-workers-right-strike):
CUPW Supports the ILWU Workers Right to Strike
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) is urging the B.C. Maritime Employers Association to return to the bargaining table and negotiate a fair deal that meets the needs of the almost 7,500 port workers represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). …
“When governments impose back-to-work legislation, they undermine workers’ capacity to negotiate … fair collective agreements.”
5. From April 28, 2023 (https://www.cupw.ca/en/cupw-national-president-treasury-board-get-back-bargaining-table):
Today, Jan Simpson, President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), called upon the federal government to stop the stonewalling and get back to the bargaining table. It must present a new offer that meets the needs of the workers represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
Nearly 160,000 workers have waited long enough. They are falling behind. They deserve respect.
“These workers have been without a new contract for over two years. Despite no new deal in place, public sector workers took care of Canadians when the pandemic hit pivoting quickly to get them the essential services and benefits, they needed. Public sector workers took care of Canadians. Now it’s time to take care of public sector workers’, says Simpson.
“Workers in Canada have a constitutional right to collective bargaining,” reminds Simpson. “The government must respect this right, return to the bargaining table, and negotiate a fair deal for these workers.”
6. From November 27, 2018 (https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/striking-canada-post-workers-reluctantly-return-to-work/):
Striking Canada Post workers reluctantly return to work
By The Canadian Press
Canada Post employees returned to work at noon on Tuesday, but a union spokesperson said their labour dispute is far from over.
On Monday, a special back-to-work law passed at the federal level, and while union members said they would respect the law, they were doing so reluctantly.
Union spokesperson Anny Lesage said that despite the return to work, there will be further non-violent demonstrations.
“People are mad, the workers are mad. I don’t know how it’s going to affect the job but it’s certainly not a good thing,” she said. “We’re not happy with the way it’s happening. The mediation is part of the law but it’s been a year since we’ve been negotiating with Canada Post. It’s not a fair agreement that we’ll have.” [implying that if they had reached an agreement by way of collective bargaining–including if necessary striking–that the collective agreement would be fair.]
7. From November 17, 2018 ( https://www.facebook.com/CUPWPacific/posts/1546700738763804/):
CUPW Pacific Region
Postal Workers In Kelowna were joined by labour and community allies at a rally outside a meeting of the Federal Liberal’s BC Caucus and their organizers today.
They were asking the Liberal Government to negotiate a fair settlement that repairs the damage done by the unconstitutional back to work legislation that was imposed the Harper Conservatives.
8. From November 7, 2018 (https://www.perspectivesgardeenfants.ca/sites/default/files/2018-11-07_Media%20Release_Strike%20ONQCNov7_EN.pdf):
Communiqué
Canadian Union of Postal WorkersThe Ontario workers joined their brothers and sisters in Quebec City from the Quebec local, who walked off the job an hour before at 11 pm (ET).
“After more than ten months of negotiations, the intervention of two mediators and two weeks of rotating strikes, Canada Post’s true coulours are emerging,” says Mike Palecek, CUPW National President. “The lofty rhetoric of wanting to work with us to reach fair agreements for our workers is turning out to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors. It needs to be said: Canada Post talks the talk, but doesn’t walk the walk.” [But what is a fair agreement?
9. From September 11, 2018 (https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrJ.B1d2olnCAIAgL_rFAx.;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1738297181/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.cupw.ca%2fen%2fcupw-fighting-good-jobs-and-better-services/RK=2/RS=73nhbx2aI2_VD86QS69rvwaHwaM-):
CUPW Fighting For Good Jobs and Better Services
“Our negotiators will continue to work with Canada Post to develop a fair agreement for all our workers, and we will not settle for less,” says Palecek [National President, CUPW]. “Our membership has given us a clear mandate to take job action if Canada Post doesn’t come to the bargaining table ready to make some changes to give our workers fair working conditions and expanded services benefitting everyone.”
10. From July 9, 2018 (https://www.servicepostalpublic.ca/en/conciliators-appointed):
On Friday, July 6, the Union received the notices confirming the start of conciliation for the Urban and RSMC bargaining units. These notices also confirm the appointment of two conciliators, one of whom is the director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. The two conciliators will work with both bargaining units. …
An agreement is still possible…
Although there has been no significant movement at the table up until now, we remain determined to reach a negotiated settlement without a strike. For this to happen, Canada Post must show a serious willingness to solve the problems experienced in the workplaces. A fair agreement is one that finally resolves the problems experienced by all members, whether they belong to the Urban or the RSMC bargaining unit.
Together we can get better working conditions; we deserve it!
In Solidarity,
Sylvain LapointeLead Negotiator, Urban UnitNancy BeauchampLead Negotiator, RSMC Unit
Political Implications
Unions evidently use the rhetoric of fair contracts, fair agreements and the like to justify their limited approach to the issues facing workers. This attempt to justify their own implicit acceptance of the power of the class of employers needs to be constantly criticized by being brought out into the open and discussed.
However, the social-democrat or social-reformist left often see no point in such open and direct criticism–despite claims to the contrary.
I will conclude this post with a conversation between Sam Gindin (a self-claimed “leader” of radical workers here in Toronto despite his probable own explicit denial of such a title) and me:
Re: A Good or Decent Job and a Fair Deal
Sam Gindin
Sat 2017-02-18 8:05 AM
Something is missing here. No-one on this list is denying that language doesn’t reflect material realities (the language we use reflects the balance of forces) or that it is irrelevant in the struggle for material effects (the language of middle class vs working class matters). And no one is questioning whether unions are generally sectional as opposed to class organizations or whether having a job or ‘decent’ pay is enough. The question is the autonomy you give to language.The problem isn’t that workers refer to ‘fair pay’ but the reality of their limited options. Language is NOT the key doc changing this though it clearly plays a role. That role is however only important when it is linked to actual struggles – to material cents not just discourse. The reason we have such difficulties in doing education has to do with the limits of words alone even if words are indeed essential to struggles. Words help workers grasp the implications of struggles, defeats, and the partial victories we have under capitalism (no other victories as you say, are possible under capitalism).
So when workers end a strike with the gains they hoped for going in, we can tell them they are still exploited. But if that is all we do, what then? We can – as I know you’d do – not put it so bluntly (because the context and not just the words matter). that emphasize that they showed that solidarity matters but we’re still short of the fuller life we deserve and should aspire to and that this is only possible through a larger struggle, but then we need to be able to point to HOW to do this. Otherwise we are only moralizing. That is to say, it is the ideas behind the words and the recognition of the need for larger structures to fight through that primarily matter. Words help with this and so are important but exaggerating their role can be as dangerous as ignoring it.
What I’m trying to say is that people do, I think, agree with the point you started with – we need to remind ourselves of the limits of, for example, achieving ‘fair wages’. But the stark way you criticize using that word, as opposed to asking how do we accept the reality out there and move people to larger class understandings – of which language is an important part – seems to have thrown the discussion off kilter.
On Sat, Feb 18, 2017 at 7:00 AM, Frederick Harris <arbeit67@hotmail.com> wrote:
I was waiting to see whether there was any dispute concerning either the primary function of language or its material nature. Since there has been no response to that issue, I will assume that the view that the primary function of language is to coordinate social activity has been accepted.
What are some of the political implications of such a view of language? Firstly, the view that “But material conditions matter more” has no obvious basis. If language coordinates our activity, surely workers need language “to reproduce themselves.”
The question is whether coordination is to be on a narrower or wider basis.
Let us now take a look at the view that a contract (a collective agreement) is fair or just and that what workers are striving for is a decent or good job.
If we do not oppose the view that any collective agreement is fair to workers and that the jobs that they have or striving to have are decent jobs, then are we saying that a particular struggle against a particular employer can, in some meaningful sense, result in a contract that workers are to abide by out of some sense of fairness? Does not such a view fragment workers by implicitly arguing that they can, by coordinating their action at the local or micro level, achieve a fair contract and a good job?
If, on the other hand, we argue against the view that the workers who are fighting against a particular employer cannot achieve any fair contract or a decent job, but rather that they can only achieve this in opposition to a class of employers and in coordination with other workers in many other domains (in other industries that produce the means of consumption of workers, in industries that produce the machines and the raw material that go into the factory, in schools where teachers teach our children and so forth), then there opens up the horizon for a broader approach for coordinating activity rather than the narrow view of considering it possible to achieve not a fair contract and a decent job in relation to a particular employer.
In other words, it is a difference between a one-sided, micro point of view and a class point of view.
As far as gaining things within capitalism, of course it is necessary to fight against your immediate employer, in solidarity with your immediate fellow workers, in order to achieve anything. I already argued this in relation to the issue of health in another post.
Is our standard for coordinating our activity to be limited to our immediate relation to an employer? Or is to expand to include our relation to the conditions for the ‘workers to reproduce themselves’?
“They turn more radical when it becomes clear that the system can’t meet their needs and other forms of action become necessary -“
How does it become clear to workers when their relations to each other as workers occurs through the market system? Where the products of their own labour are used against them to oppress and exploit them? Are we supposed to wait until “the system can’t meet their needs”? In what sense?
I for one have needed to live a decent life–not to have a decent job working for an employer or for others to be working for employers. I for one have needed to live a dignified life–not a life where I am used for the benefit of employers. Do not other workers have the same need? Is that need being met now? If not, should we not bring up the issue at every occasion? Can any collective agreement with an employer realize that need?
Where is a vision that provides guidance towards a common goal? A “fair contract”? A “decent” job? Is this a class vision that permits the coordination of workers’ activities across industries and work sites? Or a limited vision that reproduces the segmentation and fragmentation of the working class?
Fred
The bottom line is that many who consider themselves radical socialists here in Toronto (and undoubtedly elsewhere) indulge working-class organizations, such as unions. They are, ultimately, afraid to alienate social-democratic or reformist organizations. Consequently, they themselves, objectively, function as social democrats or social reformers and fail to engage workers in the necessary delegitimisation process of the class power of employers.
The Abolitionary 