Professors join postal workers on the picket line in Fredericton

Members of the Faculty Association of University of St. Thomas (FAUST) and the St. Thomas University Support and Administration Union (STUSAU) joined the picket line with locked-out postal workers at the Waggoners Lane post office in Fredericton on Friday, June 17th over the noon hour.

Robin Vose, President of FAUST, in a letter to Denis Lemelin, President of CUPW on June 2, 2011, states, “we wish to express our solidarity with your struggle to preserve the rights of your members, who are the bone and sinew of the public postal service… We were shocked to learn that Canada Post is proposing  to cut 7000 jobs in order to reduce their payroll. This means that the remaining workers will be expected to do more with less, which has implications for their health and safety, as well as the quality of service. We are also concerned that Canada Post is demanding lower rates for current temporary employees and fewer benefits for new hires. This is deplorable, for it targets the corporation’s most vulnerable workers. We support CUPW’s vision for the future of the public postal service: not a corporation preoccupied with profit and a skeleton workforce, but that of a ‘A Modern Post Powered by People’.”

Vose, a history professor at St. Thomas University, continues, “Your union was instrumental in obtaining collective bargaining rights for public sector workers in Canada in the 1960s and 70s. As a result of your leadership, many faculty members across the country now experience the benefits and protection of union membership.”