During the national consultation meetings, the Union has repeatedly told Canada Post management that it has a responsibility to investigate the impact that changes introduced as part of the “Modern Post” may have on the health and safety of the workers. We are very concerned about the possible health and safety impact of mechanized sequencing of letters. We believe that reducing in-office time and increasing on-street delivery time by more than one hour per day may result in more injuries for letter carriers.

We have demanded that CPC investigate the experience of the other postal administrations that already introduced sequencing.

CPC doesn’t see any problems

CPC may have dozens of people working full time on the Modern Post but none of them seem to be looking at the issues of health and safety and sequencing. Recently CPC President Moya Greene stated in one of her Ask Moya columns the following “We have been looking at how other posts in Europe and the United States have handled automated mail sequencing and have not discovered any adverse effects on health and safety.”

The facts are otherwise

In 1999 the collective agreement between the United States Postal Service and the National Association of Letter Carriers was determined through arbitration. At the arbitration hearings Dr. J. Paul Leigh, Professor of Epidemiology and Preventative Medicine at the University of California, presented statistical data concerning the increase in injuries to letter carriers that occurred after the United States Postal Service introduced sequencing. He testified that injury rates to letter carriers in the USA increased more than 20% after sequencing was introduced in 1993. In addition to Dr. Leigh, several letter carriers also testified about the health and safety problems which resulted from sequencing. The report of this arbitration is available on the internet.

Management must change their attitude toward health and safety

Under Article 29 of the collective agreement, management has a responsibility to eliminate all adverse effects of automation. To do this, they have to do the work necessary to investigate what the consequences of the changes will be for the workers at Canada Post. We have provided management with information that we have received from the National Association of Letter Carriers in the United States. We are also investigating the health and safety impact for inside workers and we will also share that information with CPC.

The current situation regarding injuries is totally unacceptable and we don’t want it to get worse. Last year, in 2007, 3,997 urban CUPW members experienced disabling injuries, an increase of 3% more than 2006. It’s time that CPC management gets serious about looking at the impact of the modern post on health and safety.