On the morning of Monday November 10, union members and community activists set up a picket line in solidarity with postal workers at the Glanford Postal Depot in Victoria BC. This day was chosen because it coincided with the Canada Post Corporation announcing service cuts at the request of the government, and marked a year since postal workers were locked out by the corporation after taking a strike vote November 15, 2024. In spite of a strong police contingent showing up within minutes, the picket line held firm for over an hour buttressed by exuberant postal workers arriving on shift.

This solidarity picket was set up to let postal workers know that community and other unions firmly stood with them as they continued to have their livelihoods turned upside down by both the Canada Post Corporation and the Government. Over the last year postal workers have faced enormous hardship. They were forced to work under a government back to work order for months, and then had their time wasted through bad faith negotiations with the corporation until the government simply announced massive service cuts to the postal system itself on September 25, 2025.

Postal Workers and Community

Postal workers not only serve the many people and communities across Canada, but have long stood up for social causes larger than their immediate needs as workers. These have spanned from Indigenous sovereignty, LGBTQ2+ rights, and international solidarity, to their landmark achievement of securing parental leave in 1981. The corporate attack on postal workers is not just an attack on our post office, but is also part of a deeper attack on the many issues that shape both our society and ourselves. In short, an attack on postal workers is an attack on us all.

Neoliberal austerity

This offensive has been justified by simplistic and unsubstantiated reasoning that attempts to shift the conversation to one of profitability and efficiency. It is no coincidence that this is remarkably similar to talking points heard over the last several decades to justify the implementation of neoliberal austerity. Under this system, public services are run into the ground through steady cutbacks and underfunding only to be declared unprofitable and inefficient; they are then replaced by for profit private interests.

First and foremost, the postal system is not supposed to be a for profit enterprise. Our postal system is a public service there to provide a basic essential service for people across the country in communities both big and small. Gouging profit from a public service is itself indicative of malintent. Questions come up when the Canada Post Corporation has spent years undercutting its own business model by transferring resources to its parallel corporate subsidiary Purolator. It should be noted that Purolator Inc was acquired by the Canada Post Corporation in 1993 one year after postal workers engaged in rotating strikes against privatization, and were promptly ordered back to work on that occasion too. Things continue to become more curious still when overlapping names and relationships come to light showing a deeper connection between the management of the Canada Post Corporation and the private interests that make up gigified driven business such as Amazon. To state again, it is disingenuous to intentionally break a public service and then announce it as broken in order to replace it with crude profit extracting private corporations.

Bait and switch

This transfer of wealth to private interests is done through manicured public relations statements that confuse the public conversation as to what exactly the role of the postal system is in society. To assert a conveniently round number into statements like “Canada Post is losing $10 million a day” brings up more questions than it addresses: Is a public service a for profit venture? Where is the supportive evidence substantiating this “$10 million a day”? Is this purported $10 million a loss or a transfer? Who has been overseeing this stated loss/transfer and for how long?

To add insult to injury, the Canada Post Corporation follows up by stating that it will proceed thoughtfully and treat employees with respect during this transformation, all the while knowing full well that its restructuring will result in at least 10,000 jobs-livelihoods being lost. Refusing to consider any innovation by postal workers to improve the postal system while holding fast to a strategy that will destroy jobs and the postal system itself appears to be nothing more than union busting and corporate plunder of public resources.

Solidarity

It is for these reasons that community members and trade unionists showed up in the chilly grey of Monday morning to stand in solidarity with postal workers and the postal system they deliver. Workers and the community cannot be divided whether through corporate machinations or police intimidation. As the corporation and government pursue a strategy of austerity, the resolute fight back of postal workers brings together our diverse community to stand united against austerity.

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