Heather Wright/The Independent

Canada Post workers in Lambton are taking their fight to the streets, but not necessarily in front of your local post office.

There have been few picket lines up at Petrolia’s Canada Post office, but the doors are locked and the workers there, like those across the country, are on strike after the federal government gave Canada Post new marching orders to bring down the $1 billion debt.

The feds gave the corporation permission to convert four million addresses to community mailboxes, ended the moratorium on closing rural post offices, gave the corporation more flexibility in its delivery standards including cutting the requirement to deliver five days a week and gave the company the ability to raise stamp rates more frequently.

CUP-W – which says it was blindsided by the move –issued a statement calling the changes “an outrage” that will lead to “major job losses”.

“This slapdash approach without full public consultation is an insult to the public and to postal workers. The government may act as the sole shareholder, but the public owns the post office,” says CUP-W’s National President Jan Simpson Sept. 25

And then the union members, who have been without a contract for well over two years, walked off the job for the second time in less than a year.

“We cannot accept this attack on good jobs and public services.  Let’s now turn our efforts to making sure the Government and Canada Post hear us loud and clear. We have done it before. We will do it again.”

CUP-W announced a full strike just hours after the government announced the changes.

And while the union returned to the street Sept. 25, you may not have seen many picket lines in front of your local post office, according to Darren Malcolm, president of CUP-W Local 598.

He says the union is targetting Puralator, the courior service is a subsidary of Canada Post. “They’re basically shifting parcel work from Canada Post to Purolator, and have been doing for a while, since before the strike action started way back in November,” Malcolm said. Monday, CUP-W members were trying to stop Puralator vehicles leaving the Sarnia depot. Malcolm says it “basically shutdown” the Sarnia site. 

Tuesday, the workers went to Chatham where Puralator had moved parcels to be delivered in Lambton. 

“We were also picketing Hogan Pharmacy in Petrolia because they’re a pickup hub for Puralator.”

Malcolm says CUP-W plans to continue placing pressure on the delivery service, although there are likely to be picket lines in Petrolia and Corunna between 10 am and 2 pm during the week. 

Malcolm says the workers are in for a fight, saying the federal government gave Canada Post “everything they basically wanted” to reform the corporation which is losing over $1 billion this year “leaving us out in the cold.”

He adds there is no clear plan how Canada Post will use the new powers given by the feds nor how it will affect postal delivery in Lambton. 

Malcolm says extended delivery times, which could lead to one-day a week mail delivery, could mean they would “lose a substainial amount of our workforce.”

And he says, it wouldn’t work in rural areas where CUP-W members deliver live animals and insects to farmers. “We can’t have those around for two and three days if it’s not on your scheduled day to have mail delivered.”

For now, CUP-W workers want the crown corporation to return to the bargaining table to come to a contract. “We’ve got probably 75 to 80 per cent of those collective agreements agreed to in principle…it’s the last few percentage points that are causing the problem.”

Malcolm says the union asked for arbitration, so far Canada Post and the federal government have not agreed. And he said, there is a potential that the federal government will force the union back to work.