March 17, 2006

(Letter sent to the editor of the National Post)

Dear Editor:

I would like to comment on the article entitled "Postal workers deliver ultimatum", that was published in the March 16 edition of your nrespaper. The article reported on the Canadian Union of Postal Workers' (CUPW) announcement that they are launching an initiative called Operation Transparency and will resort to civil disobedience in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and the American civil rights movement to obtain information about Canada Post's plans for its future network.

Frankly, we are flabbergasted.

Canada Post employees make good wages, enjoy great benefits, iron-clad job security and a fully indexed pension plan. We are at a loss, then, to see how this threatened civil disobedience bears any comparison to the struggles of these great movements for social justice.

Here are the facts:

• Like any large and successful company, Canada Post has for the past 15 years made changes to its network and operations, in light of market changes and the need to process mail more efficiently. As a result of our efforts to improve and modernize, we consistently deliver mail on time 96% of the time and have been profitable now for more than 10 years.
  
  
• In the case of the movement of mail from the Quebec City Letter Processing Plant, we have given CUPW, our employees and customers more than two years notice of the planned closure. To date, there have been more than 14 meetings with CUPW on this topic, with more scheduled this week and next.
  
  
• We are making all changes according to the provisions of the collective agreement.
  
  
• Most importantly, not one single full-or part-time employee will lose their job. The changes are being phased in over a period of two years to take advantage of the high number of retirements that will take place in Quebec City.

As a business, Canada Post must modernize and improve operations to stay competitive and successful. We owe it our shareholder, we owe it to our customers and we owe it to all Canadians. First and foremost, we owe it to our employees who are counting on our continued success to safeguard their job security, a fully indexed pension plan and highly-competitive compensation and benefits.

Sincerely,

Mary Traversy
Senior Vice-President
Employee Engagement
Canada Post