The Building Worker Power campaign has appointed Regional Organizers across the country, whose role is to visit as many Locals as possible to hold workfloor meetings in as many facilities as they can to promote this campaign.

If we want to win, we need everyone to stand up on the workfloor for better working conditions and fair collective bargaining. Our union is only as strong as our members are unified around a goal and organized to achieve that goal.

In case you haven’t met one of our Regional Organizers yet, I wanted to share messages from George, Asim, and James about why we can — and we will — come together and stand up to management.

Asim Malik, Ontario region, Local 566 London
We all want to be treated with human dignity and decency in return for giving our time and bodies to the corporation. Workfloor actions can help us take on the problems we face every day and remind us of our greater collective power in taking on the big fights that affect us all.

James Ball, Prairie region, Local 730 Edmonton
We need workfloor actions because the company is violating our agreement. The contract is supposed to protect our rights and how we work, but management is breaking the rules.

If we file a complaint, it may take years to get some compensation, and it won't solve the root of the problem. Workfloor actions are a way to call out the company’s behaviour and stop them from continuing to ignore our rights.

To win, we need all of us to stand up on the workfloor for better working conditions and fair collective bargaining. Our union is only as strong as our members are unified around a goal and organized to achieve that goal.

That’s why the Building Worker Power campaign has Regional Organizers across the country. Their role is to visit as many Locals as they can and hold workfloor meetings in as many facilities as they can. They believe in the power of workfloor actions and know they can empower every Local to take a stand.

I wanted to share what workfloor actions mean to three Regional Organizers: Cristina, Ellen, and Théa

Cristina Ionescu, Central region, Local 580 Ottawa
When I first became a shop steward, I thought I could do it all and solve everyone’s problems. It didn’t take long to realize that I needed the help and support of my co-workers to win, and we needed to stand together in our fights against management.

We must get back to our roots and show management and the corporation that we have over 55,000 united members who are willing to stand together for our rights.

By doing workfloor actions and wearing a union button, we show management that we are ready to support each other. We can start winning our battles and prepare for successful bargaining.

Ellen Bowles, Pacific region, Local 823 Salmon Arm/Revelstoke
Workfloor actions are important because they get results. Employers won't respect workers' rights without a fight. Organizing our members around common issues like unsafe work or our rights being trampled on, shows that we can rely on our collective power to change our working conditions.

Thea Bashore, Montréal region, Local 350 Montreal
We often talk about the great struggles of the past, like the strike of 1965 and the 1981 maternity leave strike, as if there was something unique to that time and that is impossible to replicate. But that’s not true. We can accomplish great things now, but it won’t happen unless we all come together.

We need to start with smaller actions, to build our organizing muscles. Each action prepares us for greater challenges and even greater victories.

The frustration and anger is valid, but we can — and we should — transform it into a movement for change.

Building Worker Power is the first time since 1988 that CUPW has committed to a nationwide plan to confront the employer directly on the workfloor. There are eight regional organizers who are on the ground, ready to listen to you and welcome you if you want to join us to demand better working conditions.

Here’s what regional organizers Asim and Mary say about why it’s important for ALL CUPW workers to be a part of this movement.

Asim Malik, Ontario region, Local 566 London
Organizing as Canada Post workers isn’t just a fight for us. We’re fighting for the entire working class. Workers from Amazon to Starbucks to Walmart are taking on the struggle to come together and improve their lives. You can be part of this movement.

As a Canada Post worker, you're fortunate to already have a union with a history of winning major changes for workers.

The rising cost of living caused by capitalist greed affects us all, and by joining this campaign, you can help make a positive change in your own life and the lives of your working-class sisters, brothers, friends, and comrades.

Mary Hylton, Toronto region, Local 626 Toronto
I hope when you see and hear about the campaign, it gives you the confidence to stand up against management bullying and tactics in your workplace. The campaign's efforts in one area can lead to changes across all areas, resulting in a better working environment for you and your colleagues. Join us!

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You’ll hear from more of the organizers from other regions in the next few emails but in the meantime, if you're on a Local Executive, get in touch with your Regional Organizer to schedule workfloor visits and training sessions. And if you're a member, visit our website to stay informed, talk to your Local Executive about the campaign, and volunteer as a workfloor captain.

It's time to come together and demand a better future for ourselves and our families.

Only by developing our organizing confidence locally can we build toward our ultimate goal of making fair collective bargaining the path of least resistance for both Canada Post
and the government.

Our Plan to Win

This is an incredibly ambitious campaign to change the very culture of our union, but this change will not be possible unless we see our situation clearly. Currently, our members mostly rely on, and expect, our leadership to prevent the boss from violating our rights. No matter how much of themselves our leaders dedicate toward representing our members, this top-down, individual-reliant approach will never be enough to prevent or put out the thousands of fires deliberately set all around us by the boss. Only our collective power as workers has a chance at winning.

First, we need to tell our members the reality of our situation, and how we need their help to turn things around. Whether its brutally low turnout for important contract votes, anemic picket lines, or a general lack of participation in many Locals, our union is nowhere close to being ready to do what is necessary in order to win. We must accept this and proceed accordingly. To this end, the BWP campaign has appointed Regional Organizers across the country. Their role is to visit as many Locals as they can, to hold workfloor meetings in as many facilities as they can to promote this campaign, update our contact lists to send campaign updates, and, most importantly, recruit workfloor captains to help further grow our capacity to fight. 

Finding Direction

By visiting every facility, we meet members directly where they are at; by recruiting captains in every facility, we establish an activist network where our challenges can be shared within and across different Locals and Regions, and coordinated into larger actions. Bad restructures and short-staffing are happening everywhere; what happens if we got every Local with the same problem together to coordinate training and a fight back strategy? Every visit and collected contact is logged to create a map of our progress. This map allows us to see where we’ve visited and had success recruiting, and where we need to still go and do
more work. 

Mass Education

Workfloor organizing, just like any other complex skillset, must be consistently nurtured and supported to be successful. No one is expected to feel comfortable or confident organizing a workfloor with no previous experience. Our Regional Organizers have been trained to assist Locals in running a one-day course designed specifically for this campaign to give members willing to take a stand all the tools they’ll need to effectively organize their own workfloor, such as:

• How to identify widely and deeply felt issues to organize around
• Identifying and recruiting other activists and leaders
• Building a team of collaborators to hold effective workfloor meetings
• Extensive roleplaying of confrontations with management
• Forming demands and escalating job actions based on realistic organizing capacity

The more members that know about the plan, the more members that will take the course; the more members that are armed with the skills, the more likely it is our members will begin collectively asserting their rights. Only by confronting lower levels of authority in these early days in modest, accessible ways, can we take the first small steps in building our confidence to one day take on the necessary battles ahead to win our negotiation demands or face down back-to-work legislation. 

A Structured Approach

Effective organizers do not over-promise and do not take on fights they do not have a good chance of winning. By mapping our Locals and recruiting captains, we establish a foundation by which we can conduct periodic tests of our capacity to coordinate and fight. We run these tests so that when we pick a real fight, we will be doing so knowing exactly how strong we are and how far we are capable of going.

If all it took for workers to win the day was a well written bulletin or a bombastic speech, the world would not be as unjust as it is, and our lives would be a lot better. This serious undertaking to build our capacity to fight properly must be methodical and relentless if we hope to have any chance of success.

An example of a structure test we may see in the next few months would be a petition demanding no government interference in our upcoming round of collective bargaining. To be clear, petitions don’t typically create meaningful change; the point of a petition in this context is to see how many members have been engaged by the BWP campaign and are willing to  respond to the smallest of asks. By launching a National petition like this and asking our Regional Organizers, Local, and Workfloor Captains to help collect signatures, we will get an accurate picture of how much solidarity has been built among our members, and what specific Local, facilities, and shifts we need to keep growing our forces.

Stronger Together

After decades of bad contracts, back-to-work legislation, and two nightmare years of the pandemic, our members are losing patience with their job getting worse and financially falling behind. This campaign is about taking all the frustration accumulating on our workfloors, bringing it together from every Local, and constructively focusing it into a 60,000 strong movement for change. 

If you haven’t done so already, Local Executives should contact their respective Regional Organizer to schedule days they can visit the Local to do workfloor visits promoting the campaign and arrange days to run the organizer training. Members can help by visiting the BWP website to sign-up for campaign updates, by contacting their Local Executives to make them aware of the need for this campaign to become active in their Local, or by volunteering as a workfloor captain. This campaign can work but only to the extent that our members get involved. More hands make lighter work.

In solidarity,

Roland Schmidt
3^rd National Vice-President