Combined Urban Service Drivers Join CUPW

Bulletin no : 1999-2002/186

Combined Urban Service (CUS) drivers are workers employed by private contractors, who do much of the same work as Mail Service Couriers, but for significantly lower wages, few benefits and poor working conditions. They are now joining CUPW to improve those wages and working conditions.

The CUPW already represents CUS drivers in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Frederiction. NB, Charlottetown, PEI, and Nanaimo, BC, and we have filed applications with the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to be the bargaining agent for CUS drivers in Lethbridge and Medicine Hat, AB, and in White Rock, BC. Sign-up campaigns are underway in locals all across the country and a number of applications for certification are ready to be filed.

Negotiations

Negotiations are underway in Moose Jaw, where CUS drivers there are in a legal strike position and have been carrying out escalating workplace actions to support their negotiations, and in Fredericton, where workers are taking a vote on June 27 to take strike action, if necessary, to win their demands. In Nanaimo, the union has applied for conciliation, and in Charlotteown, workers are, at time of writing, voting on their first contract June 14. The Charlottetown members are the first CUPW CUS members to win a collective agreement.

The union has served notice to bargain for CUS drivers in Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and White Rock.

CUS negotiations aren't easy. The employers are usually small contractors who bid low to get the contract in the first place, and then pay low wages and no benefits in order to make a profit. Successful negotiations, as always, will depend on the collective strength of the CUS drivers and the support of all CUPW members.

Ultimately, the responsibility rests with Canada Post Corporation and they have a couple of choices: CPC will either have to increase the value of the CUS delivery contracts, so that contractors are able to agree in negotiations to provide decent wages and working conditions, or they will have to contract in that work and bring those workers in to Canada Post.

Whichever way it goes, CUS drivers will be better off. And so will all other CUPW members.

What can you do?

If you know of any CUS drivers in locations with four or more drivers who might be interested in joining CUPW, please contact your local executive immediately. Support your local executive's efforts to organize CUS drivers. Pass on any information you have about the companies who hold the CUS contracts. But, most importantly, welcome these new Sisters and Brothers, in solidarity, to CUPW.