Roast Marshmallow over an open fire! Make Smores for you and someone you love! Bring Your Letter for Santa! All letters get a candy cane from the generous elves who deliver the letters to the big guy. Everyone is welcome to show your support and encourage the Postal Workers at the end of the 3rd week on Strike.

There will be a Rally at 4:30 pm, with speeches from allies, supporters, and CUPW workers. The media is invited to this event. Park at Takhini Arena and use the crosswalk to join the postal workers. 

Friday, December 6th, marks the start of week 4 for these workers on strike.  “It’s important to remember that instead of bargaining fairly, Canada Post Corporation forced postal workers off the job and into a strike when Canada Post Corporation announced that as of 8:00 am on Friday, November 15, Canada Post will not be following the existing collective agreement.” Says Teresa Acheson, President of the Yukon Federation of Labour. 

Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) Local 852 President Mac Clohan says, “Imagine if you were told that full-time stable employment was being replaced with fluctuating shifts doing as little as 8 hours a week with no benefits.  We are fighting for good, stable jobs that will allow workers to live good middle-class lives, serve our community and retire with dignity.  Changes at Canada Post must not come at the expense of workers, nor the communities we serve.”

Picket lines represent more than a workplace dispute—they are a stand against injustice that benefits all workers. Many of the rights enjoyed today, such as fair wages and safe workplaces, were won through past struggles where solidarity on picket lines was crucial. By honouring picket lines and work stoppages, we prevent employers from bypassing the strike’s impact, increasing pressure to negotiate fairly and strengthening the strike’s effectiveness.

Supporting picket lines and rejecting struck work protect both the immediate interests of striking workers and the broader rights of all workers. These actions ensure that sacrifices made during a strike lead to meaningful change, reinforcing the collective power and shared values of the labour movement.

The labour movement has long fought for anti-scab legislation, recognizing its crucial role in protecting workers and their right to strike. The passing of Bill C-58 earlier this year is not just a legislative win but a monumental victory for workers across the country.

Starting June 20, 2025, federally regulated employers, including Canada Post, will be restricted from using replacement workers during strikes or lock-outs. 

Those who violate the new law will face fines of up to $100,000 a day.

When you honour a picket line, you are taking a stand for the collective good, to not allow an employer or corporation to take advantage of their many workers – in this case 55,000 Postal workers across Canada fighting for a contract. 

We encourage the public to TAKE ACTION:

1. Join CUPW postal workers in Whitehorse on Friday, Dec 6, 4-6 pm for a Solidarity Picket, marshmallow roast, smores, and walk the picket line to show support. 
2. Tell Canada Post CEO Doug Ettinger that you support CUPW.  Go to CUPW.ca and sign the petition to let Canada Post know any changes at Canada Post must not come at the expense of workers, nor the communities which it serves.
3. Show your support by printing or posting your favourite image or poster – Support Postal Workers!  Support CUPW.  Love Posties.  And other messages.
4. Learn about their Delivering Community Power campaign.  Postal workers have a plan to deliver vital services to every corner of the country. Elder check-ins, low-fee postal banking, high-speed internet, and EV Charging stations.  Sign a petition to strengthen the call for any of these services you want for your neighbourhood.

In a country that spans a continent, the one thing every community deserves wherever you go is a Canada Post office and postal services that serve all of us, no matter where we live.

So now is the time to pull out all the stops to tell Canada Post to MAKE A DEAL.  Postal Workers deserve a contract. The public can help pressure the employer so postal workers can get back to doing what they love most, delivering your mail and parcels.

The post Friends and Family Support CUPW Whitehorse Postal Workers appeared first on Yukon Federation of Labour.

In case you come across a narrative that paints Postal Workers as selfish and not caring for the community they serve, here’s some information you should know:

1. Over the last 20 years, the number of workers with CUPW has remained relatively the same, at 55,000 workers. But the population of Canada had grown from 30 million to over 40 million in that same time. That’s about 727 people for every CUPW worker. So, when one of their bargaining demands was asking for decent working conditions like proper time to prepare and deliver community mail…they are thinking about you.
2. We assume that our mail is delivered by a tight system controlled by one employer. But Canada Post has segmented out more and more of its delivery chain to private contractors that anyone can bid on, undermining safe and secure delivery of your mail.¹ Having a public postal system that connects all of us, that we can trust, is important to protect.
3. We get upset at the Postal Worker when our mail is delayed, but did you know that Canada Post does not regularly back-fill workers if they need to take a sick day or vacation day, leaving them with 2-3-4 days of mail to catch up on when they get back? That’s an employer issue, not a problem with your #Postie.²
4. I’m sure you appreciate when the same postal worker gets to know your route, getting the right mail to the right box each time. Canada Post wants more “dynamic routing,” which would eliminate route ownership for postal workers and allow artificial intelligence (AI) to set new routes for workers on a daily basis. If you think it’s bad when your mail gets all mixed up by a new person on your route, imagine that on a regular basis.³
5. CUPW has already been bargaining for over a year with little progress.⁴ Workers build our economy and drive services. Sometimes withholding our labour is the only way to get an uncooperative employer to take things seriously. The goal is to get back to the bargaining table and get an agreement that respects the workers. In fact, the employer Canada Post issued notice to the workers that as of November 15, they would no longer be honoring the old Collective Agreement, cancelling vacation, and reducing staffing levels (right before the holidays).⁵ So the workers were pushed to this response, and hopefully, you now understand that Postal Workers are fighting to keep reliable postal services for you, the public.
   

Canada Post is one of our most cherished public institutions. It connects people, communities and businesses across our many different regions in Canada. It provides tens of thousands of workers with good jobs and benefits. In turn, these jobs support families and the communities in which they live.
CUPW is in negotiations with Canada Post, fighting to maintain good jobs and benefits, to provide decent and safe working conditions for your postal worker. Postal workers spend their working hours in their communities and are pushing Canada Post to meet the modern needs of people and their communities.

• Tell the CEO of Canada Post that you support postal workers.
• Post a sign of your support on social, in your car, on your mailbox, or at your home or office.
• Come out to support the workers on the picket lines and learn more about Delivering Community Power and how your postal workers are trying to look out for the communities they serve.

1. From the Canada Post Website, “We want to partner with your business. Submit proposals for mail transportation contracts and goods, materials, technology and professional services contracts.” ︎
2. “We are given personal days, but if you use one and take a day off, more often than not Canada Post delays the mail,” said one worker. “When we return to our route, we have 2 or 3 or 4 days of mail to deliver. Our members across the country are being disciplined for not being able to finish a route and delaying the mail for not finishing, but CPC [Canada Post Corporation] is deliberately running short-staffed and not caring about the delay of mail while our members are being suspended for the same thing.” ︎
3. CUPW update to workers Feb 2024, What does the employer want? ︎
4. Statement from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers: More Than 55,000 Postal Workers on Strike Friday November 15 2024
   For Immediate Release – OTTAWA – Some 55,000 postal workers represented by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) went on a nationwide strike on Friday, November 15 at 12:01am ET. After a year of bargaining with little progress, postal workers made the difficult decision to strike. Canada Post had the opportunity to prevent this strike, but it has refused to negotiate real solutions to the issues postal workers face every day. Instead, Canada Post left us no choice when it threatened to change our working conditions and leave our members exposed to layoffs
   Canada Post has notified the union and CUPW-represented employees that unless new agreements are reached, the current collective agreements for both the Urban and RSMC bargaining units will no longer apply as of Friday, November 15 at 8 a.m. ET ︎
5. Read more in the November 15 update at 7:10am  ︎

The post Show Your Support for Postal Workers appeared first on Yukon Federation of Labour.