This issue of Perspective features the second in a series of articles about CUPW members who are not postal workers. In future issues, you will be reading more and more about these CUPW members and the work that they do outside Canada Post. You'll also be reading about some new issues and different industries. For example, there is an article in this issue about independent contractors and workers compensation, a serious concern for CUPW members in the courier industry.

No, we're not all traditional postal workers anymore. CUPW members are cleaners, warehouse workers, couriers, combined urban service drivers, mailing house workers, and call centre workers. We don't just have one employer anymore. CUPW members work for more than a dozen different private sector employers. Some of the companies our members work for do work under contract with Canada Post, some compete directly with the post office. CUPW members are covered by ten different collective agreements and the union is often engaged in several rounds of negotiations for a number of different bargaining units at one time.

We're continuing to organize more groups of workers outside Canada Post. In one recent month we received three new bargaining certificates for three new bargaining units. We are also continuing the struggle to organize the rural route and suburban mail couriers. CUPW will continue to change and to grow.

Each new group of workers that joins CUPW changes the union for the better. The 1989 merger of the of bargaining units that brought together members of CUPW, the Letter Carriers Union of Canada (LCUC) and the Union of Postal Communications Employees (UPCE) had a tremendous impact on the union, as will every new group of workers that joins CUPW.

Workers need unions and the ability to use their collective strength to improve their wages and working conditions. That's only one of the reasons that CUPW decided to start organizing outside the post office. We're organizing in the postal related communications industry to increase our bargaining strength in that industry. That's good for postal workers. We're organizing to get new work and to bring work that was contracted out back into the post office. We're organizing to create decent jobs in our communities and to improve the wages and working conditions of the people who do this work. That's good for all of us.

Of course, the vast majority of the CUPW's 45,000 members work for Canada Post as letter carriers, postal clerks, mail service couriers, mail handlers, dispatchers, maintenance and stores people. So you'll continue to see lots of articles in Perspective about the working conditions of postal workers and the future of postal service. But you'll also see the union making additional efforts to include members of other bargaining units in all our communications and in all of the work that we do.

The changes that you'll be seeing in the kinds of articles you read in Perspective are just the beginning. The union must ensure that members of new bargaining units take their rightful place and participate fully in all aspects of their union.

It's not enough to just sign up new members. All members of CUPW have the right to participate in their union. We have to make every effort to ensure that they do. Only then will we be able to truly move forward with our organizing work.