CUPW has filed a national grievance (N00-03-00021) because Canada Post has taken the position that when special transportation routes, for which an employee has volunteered to use their private vehicle, becomes vacant, the successful bidder can at that time volunteer to use his or her private vehicle. In other words, employees can volunteer to use their PVs during the monthly bid.

The Union strongly opposes this interpretation and believes that employees can only volunteer to use PVs during the route restructuring exercises as per article 32.06 of the urban collective agreement.

CLAUSE 32.06 (K)

This clause of the urban collective agreement forces employees who volunteer to use their PVs to remain on those routes which they bid until the next route restructure. This means that as soon as an employee volunteers to use their PVs under clause 32.06 (e), they lose their seniority rights no matter what route they end up bidding on under clause 32.06 (h). The fact that employees volunteer to use their PVs results in the loss of seniority rights.

This clause was put into the language, by the Letter Carriers’ Union of Canada, to discourage members from volunteering to use their vehicles.

RELAY BUNDLE DELIVERY, CLAUSE 48.10

As can be seen from CPC’s new interpretation of clause 32.06, the PV strategy is alive and well. While visiting the work floor recently and when we look at the manner in which relay routes are being set up for mobile letter carriers, it becomes obvious that management is creating waiting time. The ultimate goal is to have us take our own bundles out as we get tired of waiting for our relay bags. In Edmonton, Depot 9 for example, there are late bundles every day since the implementation of the most recent route restructure. We lost 6 full time routes during the route restructuring exercise.

Management is paying hundreds of dollars daily to have the relay bags delivered by taxi. It would obviously be cheaper to just add some time to a part time mobile route and set up a second bundle route as per clause 48.10. But money is no object when management attempts to gain productivity and rid itself of its obligation to supply transportation as per clause 32.01.

If we react by taking out our relays instead of making them pay for the waiting time, management wins. Over and above this they will never correct the problem.

RURAL AND SUBURBAN MAIL CARRIERS

As we are doing the ratification vote of the tentative agreement for the RSMC one issue that comes up at every meeting is the high cost of vehicle maintenance and fuel. RSMC Sisters and Brothers would be more than happy to have CPC supply their transportation. We must all look at this reality when management approaches Letter Carriers with the private vehicle option. The Union will never be able to control or predict the price of vehicles, repairs or fuel and that is why CPC must be contractually responsible for transportation.

In many other countries the Postal Administrations supply corporate transportation for rural Letter Carriers.

URBAN NEGOTIATONS ARE FAST APPROACHING

OUR DAILY WORK HABITS ARE BEING MONITORED BY CPC