POSTAL WORKERS ORDERED BACK TO WORK BY GOVERNMENT

ITS 7:40PM SAT JUNE 25,11 AND A FINAL VOTE WILL BE DONE SHORTLY TO FORCE CANADAS POSTAL WORKERS BACK TO WORK.AFTER THE NDP,LIBERALS AND BLOCS HAVE TRYED TO STALL THE VOTE BY DEBATING FOR SOMETHING LIKE THE LAST 58 HOURS.IT STARTED THURSDAY SOMETIME AND THE 2ND VOTE OF THE BILL WAS PASSED BY A YES 158 VOTE TO NO 133.I MISSED THE 1ST VOTE BUT IT WAS PROBABLY THE SAME YES TO ORDER WORKERS BACK TO WORK 158 AND NO 133.AFTER THIS FINAL VOTE IS CAST INTO LAW,24 HOURS LATER IT WILL COME INTO EFFECT.AND BY SOMETIME NEXT WEEK THE MAIL WILL BE RUNNING NORMAL AS USUAL.THE POSTAL WORKERS HAVE BEEN LOCKED OUT SINCE JUNE 16,11,I BELIEVE.AND THE POSTAL STATIONS BEFORE THAT WORKED 3 DAYS A WEEK ON ROTATING STRIKES.I JUST HEARD THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE SAY THERES 6 MINUTES TO DEBATE ,THEN THE VOTE AT 7:55PM.OK ITS NOW 8PM JUNE 25,11 AND THE 3RD AND FINAL VOTE IS UNDERWAY.AND THE RESULT AT 8:08PM IS YES TO FORCE THE POSTAL WORKERS BACK TO WORK.YES 158-NO 113.IN 24 HOURS THIS VOTE TAKES EFFECT AND THE POSTAL WORKERS IN CANADA WILL BE FORCED BACK TO WORK.TOMORROW THE BILL GOES TO THE SENATE TO PASS.THEN 24 HRS LATER IT TAKES EFFECT.

Canada Post back-to-work bill clears House
Conservatives reject changes to bill, which moves to Senate on Sunday
CBC News Last Updated: Jun 25, 2011 8:12 PM ET

New Democratic Party MP Charlie Angus speaks in the House of Commons as his party continues their filibuster on the government back-to-work legislation on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The House gave third reading to the bill just after 8 p.m. by a vote of 158-113. New Democratic Party MP Charlie Angus speaks in the House of Commons as his party continues their filibuster on the government back-to-work legislation on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The House gave third reading to the bill just after 8 p.m. by a vote of 158-113. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

A Conservative bill ordering 48,000 Canada Post employees back to work cleared the House of Commons on Saturday night after a marathon debate and several failed opposition attempts to amend it.The House gave third reading to the bill just after 8 p.m. by a vote of 158-113. The bill, which imposes a four-year contract and certain wage increases on the workers, will go to the Senate on Sunday morning.The back-to-work order would go into force 24 hours after the receiving royal assent, according to Labour Minister Lisa Raitt.

Canada Post back-to-work bill clears hurdle-Conservatives defeat attempts to amend bill-CBC News-Last Updated: Jun 25, 2011 7:20 PM ET-NDP deputy leader Tomas Mulcair talks about his party's attempt to force changes in the Conservative government's proposed back-to-work legislation to end the Canada Post labour dispute NDP filibuster

A Conservative bill that would order 48,000 Canada Post employees back to work cleared a key hurdle Saturday, and opposition hopes of winning amendments appeared doomed.Late in the afternoon, the House voted 158-112 to give second reading to the bill, which then moved to committee-of-the-whole for clause-by-clause debate and proposed amendments.The move came three days into Opposition NDP efforts to hold up the bill and after talks between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers collapsed again.Canada Post locked out the employees on June 14, after the union conducted 12 days of rotating strikes

Proposes form of binding arbitration

The back-to-work bill, introduced last Monday, would impose a four-year contract and pay increases and leave unresolved issues to a form of binding arbitration in which each side would table its final offer and the arbitrator would pick one or the other.
New Democratic Party MP Charlie Angus speaks in the House of Commons as his party continues their filibuster on the government back-to-work legislation on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. New Democratic Party MP Charlie Angus speaks in the House of Commons as his party continues their filibuster on the government back-to-work legislation on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press.Labour Minister Lisa Raitt said the postal dispute is expected to cause a measurable impact on the Canadian economy, with losses between and $9 million and $31 million a week.The parties in the dispute have tried again and again and again … and indeed there is no agreement in sight,she said as committee debate began.But MP Thomas Mulcair, the deputy leader of the NDP, accused the Conservatives of trying to roll back the collective bargaining rights of workers, and his party planned to propose amendments.

We want to take away the forced situation in which both sides are limited in the manner in which they can present their sides and the arbitrator has to take one side,Mulcair told reporters at a hastily announced news conference in the Commons foyer.But as MPs voted on individual sections of the bill at the committee stage, the Conservatives resisted any changes.One amendment sought by the NDP would have removed clauses forcing the two sides into final-offer selection by an arbitrator to end the dispute. Another would have removed the salary provision of the bill, which the NDP said proposes a wage increase lower than what Canada Post had wanted to offer the union.The Liberals said they would propose similar amendments to end the stubborn ideological debate between the government and Opposition on the issue.The sterile and hopelessly polarized debate between left and right cannot go on forever, Liberal interim leader Bob Rae said in a statement. It's time for parliamentarians to put an end to this shambolic debate and find a solution to the impasse.After the committee stage, the bill would still need to pass third reading and receive Senate approval before it reached royal assent and became law.The New Democrats began the filibuster Thursday evening as MPs were scheduled to start their summer break. The non-stop stall continued all day Friday, with a setback for the NDP as Conservatives and Liberals joined to defeat a procedural motion.

Record for non-stop debate set

The NDP had introduced the hoist motion to put off second reading for six months but failed to win approval after the Liberals joined the governing Conservatives to defeat it by a vote of 160 to 74.MPs have set a record for non-stop debate on back-to-work legislation. The Conservative government says the old record of 27.5 hours was set in 1989.Talks between Canada Post and the union collapsed late Wednesday, with pension issues at the heart of the stalemate.Canada Post said there were discussions on Saturday morning, but they broke off and the two sides were still far apart.CUPW national president Denis Lemelin, who was seen mid-Saturday leaving Parliament Hill with other union officials, would not confirm whether talks had resumed.

Canada Post Lockout: Why the Need for Intervention?
Posted: 06/25/11 09:27 AM ET
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/

With all the rhetoric surrounding the Conservative government's introduction of back to work legislation, it's worth looking at previous government reaction to work stoppages at Canada Post.There is a long history of troubled labour relations at the corporation, for example, there were some 19 strikes, lockouts and walkouts between 1965 and 1997, but major postal shutdowns are rare.For instance, the last time this union went on a full scale strike was in the fall of 1997. At that time, the strike ended two weeks later after the Liberal government brought in back to work legislation.Fourteen days is not a long time, but it was considerably shorter than a couple of previous strikes which lasted 43 days in 1975 and 42 days in 1981. In 1978, the union went on a legal strike and was legislated back by the Liberal government on the very first day.The scenario today isn't much different, except the public is far less inconvenienced. Technology has replaced the crucial need for the delivery of paper bills, email is replacing snail mail and there has been little outcry from average Canadians about the impact of the strike on their lives.

The present mail disruptions began on June 2, 2011. This involved a series of rotating strikes which began in Winnipeg. On June 14, 2011 Canada Post announced a lockout. With the introduction of the present legislation, mail disruption, full or partial (whether union or management generated) will have lasted approximately 23 days unless the NDP manages to delay the legislation further.One can certainly argue the difference between a legal strike and a lockout, but in both cases there was plenty of warning that either the union or the corporation was going to take action. One would assume that the majority of businesses that rely on Canada Post would have taken steps to prepare for a disruption in service. For example, banks, department stores, utilities and others blitzed their customers with advertisements on how to sign up for online billing. There are also plenty of other services able to pick up some of the slack including courier companies, rail, and truck and bus lines.There is always a cost to a strike and during this strike Canada Post announced it was losing millions of dollars. There is nothing unusual in that as that is one of the pressures a strike places on management, just as loss of wages hurts the striking workers. Its one of the reasons both sides negotiate a settlement.For its part government has a range of options at its disposal including mediation and arbitration. This time around the government is using a sledge hammer when a full and complete shutdown of postal services has only lasted 11 days. One can question the necessity of any intervention at this point.

Certainly there is an economic impact from this strike, there is from every strike. On the one hand the government keeps telling us that we have the strongest economy of western nations, now they are telling us one full postal shutdown lasting just 11 days will have dire consequences for the nation. I might have missed it, but I don't recall seeing any economic numbers to back up their claim. How many other strikes will they intervene in now? Every strike impacts on the economy of an area, region or town.Is it the pending summer parliamentary recess that is driving the government agenda? To allow the lockout/strike to continue into the break would have meant a potential recall of Parliament during the summer. Our MPs have worked a grand total of 34 days this session and are about to embark on an 87 day break. Would it have hurt them to come back for a few days if there was an absolute breakdown in negotiations? If given more time could there have been a negotiated settlement such as happened in 2007? The need for government intervention also brings up another issue. Should the government be looking at privatizing Canada Post as has been done in Germany? Whatever the case, the full repercussions from this lockout/strike haven't been felt yet.