Claude Albert Edwards 1916 - 2010

Peacefully on Sunday May 16th, 2010 at the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus at the age of 94. He is survived by his son Robert Edwards and wife Pamela, grandchildren Ian and Victoria, as well as many relatives and friends throughout the world. Born and educated in Toronto, he taught school at the Golden Rose Mine in Northern Ontario before serving in the RCAF in Canada, the United Kingdom and Holland during WWII. After the war he joined the Department of Veterans Affairs. Subsequently he became President of the Civil Service Federation, then founding President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. Claude also served as a member or chaired many boards and councils, the longest service as a member and chairman of the Board of Governors of Carleton University from 1971 to 1990. His last official role was as National President of the Federal Superannuates National Association from 1989 to 1998. He retired to Gananoque, near his beloved cottage on Lost Bay. While in Gananoque he supported the establishment of the Lost Bay Nature Conservancy. For his tireless work, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1976. In 1997 Carleton presented Claude with a Founders Award for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of the University and in 2001 a Honourary Doctor of Laws was conferred on him by Carleton University. He was a tower of strength and support for his family, friends and associates. He will be missed.

STOP CONTRACTING OUT OUR CALL CENTERS
SPECIAL MEETING

WHEN : Tuesday, June 15th 2010

WHAT TIME : One session at 17 PM and a second session at 19 PM (In order to give the opportunity to all employees to be attending)

WHERE : Centurion Conference &Event Center,
170 Colonnade Road South in the Empress Hall

Come and find out what your Union has done so far to fight the contracting out of your call center since the March 30th announcement by CPC.

Come to learn what YOU can do to help your Union save jobs in Canada and what are your rights in the actual situation.

Guess speakers: John Sullivan -PSAC
Maria Fitzpatrick – PSAC regional VP for the NCR

Food and beverages will be provided at both meetings.

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Local Meeting Local 70180

WHAT : Special General Meeting of Local 70180 (UPCE)

WHEN : Wednesday June 9th at 17 h 30

WHERE : 2415 Holly Lane, Suite 201 F (address of Local 70180)

WHY : To vote on the recommendation of the Disciplinary Committee

The meeting should not last more than 30 minutes, the time it will take to take the vote.

QUOI : Assemblée générale spéciale du Local 70180 (SEPC)

QUAND: Le mercredi 9 juin à 17 h 30

OÙ : Au 2415 Holly Lane, bureau 201 F (adresse de notre Local)

POURQUOI : Afin de voter sur la recommandation du Comité de discipline

La rencontre ne devrait pas prendre plus de 30 minutes, le temps de tenir le vote.

Bulletin Mixup

May 13, 2010

Please note that a draft bulletin was sent out by mistake. The official version of the bulletin will be sent out soon. Thank you for your patience and your understanding.

Veuillez prendre note qu'une ébauche de bulletin a été envoyée par erreur. La version officielle du bulletin sera envoyée sous peu. Merci de votre patience et de votre compréhension.

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Canada Post to privatize 300 contact centre jobs across Canada

Ottawa—The Public Service Alliance of Canada, the largest federal public service union in the country, will be taking swift action to prevent Canada Post from privatizing an important part of its operations. Yesterday, the crown corporation announced that it would outsource its contact centres and the National Philatelic Centre, resulting in the elimination of more than 300 jobs across the country.

Affected locations include:

• Edmonton
• Ottawa
• Winnipeg
• Antigonish
• Fredericton

“This obsession with privatization will badly damage the quality of the Canadian postal service as well as the communities it serves,” said Robyn Benson, the PSAC Regional Executive Vice-President for the Prairies. “Many regions in the country will lose local contact with Canada Post as well as jobs that are important for the local economy,” she added.

For Benson, the privatization of Canada Post’s answering services also raises the question of protection of confidential information provided by Canadians.

“I’m not sure that Canadians are ready to see their postal service become an information collection agency for the American government,’ Benson said. “If an American company answers calls for Canada Post, then the U.S. Patriot Act gives the government access to all information the company collects. Is that what Canadians want?”

Richard Deslauriers, the National President of PSAC component, the Union of Postal and Communications Employees (UPCE) said this type of economic reasoning will bring Canada Post closer to a complete privatization.

“The privatization of Canada Post has always been an objective of the current management and the conservative federal government,” Deslauriers said. “The slippery slope of partial privatization of services will end up with Canada Post in the hands of private companies and Canadians will be deprived of a service they have relied on for decades”.

The PSAC represents more than 165,000 members across the country including 2,000 at Canada Post

As a union, UPCE’s first priority is to protect the standard of living and job security of its members. In 2010 and beyond, that means we must work to shape a viable future for the Postal Service and the membership of UPCE, helping to decide how it will thrive and serve the Canadian people.

There has been a major debate going on for quite some time regarding the future of Canada Post. Should we deregulate and/or privatize the Postal System in Canada? Other countries have made the mistake of privatizing their postal system and in most cases it was rather devastating to the public and the people of that country.

The Harper Government, the Board of Directors and the CEO of Canada Post continue to push their right wing agenda towards the deregulation and privatization of your public post office. It is even suggested that this will help create more jobs and better profits for the progress of the modern post. UPCE and other postal unions around the world know this is not the case.

Which workers do they speak about? The fact is the workers and the jobs they speak about are actually low paying non-union jobs and certainly won’t be UPCE jobs. The profits they speak of will only go to increase their already high salaries and inflated bonuses. This money will never make it to the workers. It rarely does.

Ironically, a few decades ago, the IPS report said CEOs usually took home about 30 or 40 times that of a worker, but, in 2008, top executives on average scooped up a whopping 319 times more than the average U.S. worker.

While these statistics are from the U.S., they are similar and close to the reality of Corporate Canada. We should ask ourselves, does it make sense in this global recession that the average UPCE worker makes approximately $48,000 a year with a potential of making a 4% bonus (CTI) and another 3% on (IPI) for a potential of 7%, while the CEO of Canada Post is making in bonuses alone a hundred thousand more than the average workers of Canada Post Corporation.

The salary of Ms Green, according to an article in the Calgary Sun published February 15, 2010, Canada Post Corporation would only disclose a salary range ($416,200 to $489,700) and a bonus range (a rate of up to 33%) meaning a maximum bonus of $161, 601. WOW, that’s a sweet deal in a time of global recession.

I am sure I do not need to remind everyone what happened during our negotiations of 2008. We were told that Canada Post Corporation was going broke and they needed some serious changes in order to make their modern post a success. The sad part was when it came time to finding a solution to their so-called economic situation at Canada Post, they imposed cuts and roll-backs on us by taking away our sick leave, family-related leave and gave us a lower than cost-of-living economic salary increase.

They will use all and any excuse to protect their elite, fat cat status and stop at nothing to take more money out of workers’ pockets. Their giant pay packets in my view are unethical and unsustainable, and that the fixing of CEO pay was a “racket”.

As the global economy makes a slow recovery after the worst recession since the Great Depression, decision makers should put the economy on a sustainable footing. The important lesson to be learned is that working people bailed out the financial system and that has enabled the recovery to take place. Now, we expect a shift from market fundamentalism to a new era of social responsibility on everything ranging from business values to CEO pay.

They often remind us of the skyrocketing cost of pensions, health care and benefits to a level that Canada Post claims they cannot sustain in this global economic meltdown. Perhaps, a serious pay review for the 12th floor at Canada Post might be in order to help them pay for these rising costs.

Unfortunately, their solution to fix the rising cost of pensions and benefits is to increase the cost and put the brunt of it on the workers’ backs or they will simply take it away and make the changes to fit their right wing agenda. Yet, neither the Board of Directors nor the CEO of Canada Post have made any cuts to their already high salaries or inflated bonuses. I am sure they are not affected by the so-called financial situation at Canada Post.

The truth is, until ALL the members of UPCE at Canada Post have had enough and start taking action to stop the insanity of losing jobs and not receiving our fair share of the pie, Canada Post will continue to abuse us, financially and mentally, as they have in the past.

We must stand united and strong because to do otherwise will be the last thing we do.

UPCE/PSAC has worked shoulder to shoulder with the CLC and other unions (including CUPW and UNI Global Union) to fight for the future of Canada Post.

What are you doing to protect your jobs, work and Canada Post?

We must continue to work together to put political pressure on our politicians to show them the benefit of keeping Canada Post a public company, We know the benefit because we live it every day in large major centers or in rural areas. We are the workers that know what the postal office needs and what the public want for service from their public Post Office.

A win on this front in our battle to secure the future for UPCE and the future of Canada Post is crucial to maintain our working lives.

Finding a brighter future!

In my next newsletter, I’ll touch upon the future of UPCE and what needs to be done to continue supporting and properly representing the membership….

Stay Tuned…

Richard L. Des Lauriers
National President