Labour Update: Postal workers strike; CUPE hopes labour relations improve under Holt [video]

The NB Media Co-op presents the latest edition of Labour Update. For this edition of the show, host David Gordon Koch is joined by Line Doucet, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Local 78 (CUPW Moncton) and Steve Drost, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees New Brunswick (CUPE NB).

This interview was recorded on Nov. 8, just days before CUPW issued a 72-hour strike notice to Canada Post. A nation-wide strike involving 55,000 workers began on Friday, Nov. 15. In this interview, Doucet talks about issues for postal workers, including the introduction of a system called “separate sort and delivery” which she said significantly worsens working conditions.

It eliminates the part of the day that delivery workers normally spend indoors sorting the mail, turning delivery and sorting into two separate jobs. The result is that workers are covering longer distances on foot and spending more time in the elements, she said. Along with labour shortages, it’s putting more strain on the workforce.

Drost, president of CUPE NB, talked about his hopes for improved labour relations with the provincial government under newly elected Premier Susan Holt.

He said Holt has pledged to repeal legislation passed under the former Tory government forcing thousands of public sector workers into shared-risk pensions. Labour leaders have called that bill an attack on free collective bargaining rights. Holt has also pledged to lift a ban that prevents Drost and two other CUPE leaders from the grounds of the Legislative Assembly, he said.

Watch and listen to the latest edition of Labour Update for all the details and more news and perspectives through the lens of the labour movement in New Brunswick.