Solidarity with striking CUPW workers

Student unions, campus locals, and student organizations stand in solidarity with Postal Workers, demanding decent work for postal workers, their right to retire with dignity, and the expansion of Canada Post services

We, the undersigned, call on Canada Post Corporation to meet the demands of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) in their ongoing strike. 

As young people, workers and future workers, and students who are struggling to make ends meet, we stand in solidarity with Canada Post workers striking for a living wage and an end to the privatization that is sacrificing workers' pensions, benefits, and supports. We recognize Canada Post as an essential service that keeps our communities, our lives, and our work functioning across the country, and stand in solidarity with the 55 000 Postal Workers on strike demanding fair wages, safe working conditions, the right to retire with dignity, and the expansion of services at the public post office. 

As Canada Post Corporation makes moves to increase days of service through lower-paid part-time and contract workers, increased working hours and delivery hours outdoors, and weakened employee pensions, we call on them to take action to improve the lives and conditions of their employees. 

This strike reminds us of the potential to expand this public sector corporation, to better service communities while creating good jobs for the workers providing these essential services. Within their bargaining demands, CUPW has continually called on Canada Post to re-establish postal banking. This public not-for-profit banking service would allow community members to conduct basic banking at their local post office, in particular benefiting rural and remote communities.

For the last several years, students, like so many across so-called Canada, have struggled amid an affordability crisis, the climate crisis, and the rapid privatization of vital services. At the heart of all this are Canada’s private banks. These banks continue to finance major fossil fuel expansion projects that lock us in for greater climate chaos and violate the rights of Indigenous Peoples. They are actively financing and investing in weapons companies being used in the violence against Palestinians in occupied Palestine and the genocide in Gaza.  The banks continue to rake in record profits, translating into exorbitant executive pay and bonuses, while working-class people struggle more each day to make ends meet. 

We need a public alternative to shift power and wealth away from major corporation executives into the hands of people and workers. We need a public bank that is accessible for all, and for the benefit of communities and workers, not a few wealthy executives who profit at the expense of the Canadian public and the future of our shared climate.  CUPW’s call for the re-establishment of postal banking is a step towards meeting this need, and we stand in solidarity with that demand.

As students and young people, we uplift the facts that CUPW has already meticulously presented: that postal banking is lucrative and could generate much-needed revenue for Canada Post. As their fact sheet points out, postal banking generates 80% of New Zealand's postal service’s after-tax revenue. By providing this service, Canada Post could better service remote, elderly, disabled, and otherwise isolated communities and community members, while bringing in needed revenue to provide workers job security and decent pay. 

We know this is possible. Up until 1968, Canada had a postal banking series, which at its peak serviced over 300 communities, until the corporate bank lobby crushed this service. What’s more, between 2010 and 2014, Canada Post conducted a secret study on postal banking that concluded it to be a win-win strategy and a "proven money-maker" for the corporation. This study was never released and was gutted in the fall of 2013, just before the post office announced massive cuts and steep rate hikes. 

By ignoring postal workers’ demands, the crown corporation, Canada Post, and the Canadian government continue to demonstrate that they do not have the best interests of the public or workers in mind. They continue to prioritize the interests of the high-earning few, who are situated at the top of profit-driven, wealth-extracting, climate-wrecking banks, at the expense of the needs of their workers, our communities, and the future health of our planet. 

Lastly, we call on our fellow students, young people, and our communities to take action. Join a picket line near you using CUPW’s picket finder, send an email to Canada Post’s executives demanding they meet workers' needs and bargain in good faith. You can take action using the CUPW toolkit. 

In the face of a worsening climate crisis and rapid cost of living increases, we need investment in good, low-carbon jobs. We need increased opportunities for public sector employees to do work that serves the common good, in non-extractive ways. We need to fight for decent work for all, putting workers and people over profit and endless extraction. 

Public unions continue to show us that stronger communities are possible; where workers earn enough to live, with secure safety nets for their retirements, while servicing communities for the common good. 

Signed, 

Change Course

Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario

Concordia Student Union

Syndicat étudiant uOttawa - uOttawa Students' Union

Trent Central Student Association

University of Toronto Graduate Students' Union

University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union

Canadian Federation of Students

CUPE 3913

CUPE 2278

CUPE 3903

CUPE 2626

Association of McGill University Support Employees, PSAC Local 17600

Climate Justice University of Toronto

Climate Action Coalition, University of Alberta

Climate Justice Ecosystem, University of Waterloo

Sustainable Trent, Trent University

New World Spirit, University of Alberta

Climate Justice UBC

Green Career Centre

Divest McGill

Climate Justice Thunder Bay 

Re•generation

University of Ottawa NDP

University of Ottawa Student Christian Movement

RBC Off Campus UBC-Okanagan

Community Peacemaker Teams - Turtle Island Solidarity Network

Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition

Climate Justice UOttawa

Banks Off Campus YorkU

Chase Environmental Action Society

The Climate Justice Organizing HUB

Peterborough Youth NDP

University of Alberta New Democrats

Left Alliance University of Guelph

Fridays for Future Windsor-Essex

Climate Justice McMaster

Fridays for Future TO

Decolonial Solidarity Guelph

Student Christian Movement Canada