The people who deliver mail between Timmins and Sultan are off the job today, for the second time since their union began rotating 24-hour strikes against Canada Post.
The 79 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers are on picket lines in Timmins, South Porcupine, Cochrane and Chapleau.
Meanwhile, the federal government is trying to push a back-to-work bill through the Commons.
John Cameron is the president of the local branch of CUPW. He criticizes Canada Post for letting it come to this. “It’s a shame,” he remarks. “We just never realized that Canada Post would sit on their hands and the government come in and save them from being able to negotiate a fair collective agreement.”
The most contentious issue during the year-old negotiations is health and safety, arising from increased letter and parcel loads for the workers, because of increasing online shopping.
Cameron says the two sides do agree that there is a problem. “Since they are aware of it, you would think that they would want to resolve the issues, but yet we come up with some good solutions, and they have not taken any of them.”
Union locals in North Bay and the Kirkland Lake/Englehart/New Liskeard area are also on strike today.