Postal workers will fight closure despite agreement

For immediate release

Ottawa, March 31st, 2006 – The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has signed an agreement with Canada Post that protects the individual rights of postal workers in Quebec City while maintaining the union's campaign to keep the mail processing plant open.

There is even a clause in the preamble of the agreement committing that the union will continue to fight the closure. The union’s national president says members think the shut-down is bad for them and for service to the community.

“Not only will service suffer, but those jobs will be lost to the Quebec economy forever,” says Deborah Bourque, “and there is strong public support to review the decision to close the plant.” More than 800 municipal councils and a 130,000-person petition declared their opposition to this closure and to other closures, when it was announced last summer. A number of federal MPs also questioned the decision.

The CUPW is currently campaigning to get Canada Post to disclose all its plans for the postal network, so the public can debate them. “We know that Quebec City is just the tip of the iceberg,” says Bourque, “and other plants and post offices are at risk.”

Today’s agreement came about because the CUPW’s contract with Canada Post Corporation obliges the union and management to try to resolve all adverse effects on employees caused by technological changes like the Quebec closure.