The Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (PWRFC) is calling a public online meeting this Sunday at 1 p.m. Eastern time to discuss the way forward. All who are interested in attending need to click here to register.

Entitled “The Canada Post Strike at the Crossroads,” the meeting will underscore that a continuation of the union bureaucracy’s isolation of the strike will inevitably lead to its defeat and the imposition of a savage restructuring program that will cost tens of thousands of full-time jobs.

Friday marks three weeks since 55,000 postal workers walked off the job at Canada Post to fight for decent-paying, full-time jobs, and oppose the Crown corporation’s effort to use automation and artificial intelligence to boost profitability at the expense of working conditions. Canada Post strikers are determined to wage a struggle. But they are being hamstrung by the disastrous policies of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), which are forcing the workers to stand alone against the combined strength of corporate Canada and its bought-and-paid-for political representatives.

The Liberal government’s Labour Minister, Steven MacKinnon, is waiting in the wings with the arbitrary powers he has arrogated through a reinterpretation of Section 107 of the Labour Code, which allows him to order the unelected Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to end a strike and impose the employer’s demands through arbitration. Big business could also decide to let “market forces” bankrupt Canada Post, a process facilitated by the funneling of its lucrative commercial operations to low-cost courier services like Purolator.

In either case, the key to the success of the ruling elite’s onslaught is the union bureaucracy’s isolation of Canada Post strikers from their class brothers and sisters across the country and internationally.

The alternative path forward is the broadening of the strike to other sections of the working class in Canada, the US, the UK and elsewhere, which must be mobilized industrially and politically to wage a counteroffensive against the ruling elite’s drive to privatize public services, impose austerity and wage war.

The strike wave that has swept all economic sectors and parts of the country since late 2021 demonstrates that powerful support for a widespread mobilization to secure workers’ interests exists throughout the working class. This must be directed against the Liberal government, a close ally of the union bureaucracy and New Democrats that has used budget cuts and attacks on workers to fund the enrichment of the corporate elite, and military rearmament and the waging of wars around the world.

CUPW and the CLC are doing everything they can to block such a development. CUPW dragged its feet for months before calling a strike, even though it was clear that Canada Post management had no interest in bargaining. Although contracts expired at the end of December 2023 and January 2024 for the urban and rural units, a strike vote was only held in October 2024! Further delays by the bureaucracy after the overwhelming “Yes” vote was announced meant that the postal workers walked out alone, rather than alongside dockworkers in Montreal and Vancouver, whose struggles were criminalized by government intervention just four days before the postal workers’ strike began.

In a warning sign that the CUPW bureaucracy is planning to capitulate to Canada Post’s demands, Wednesday’s union bargaining update noted that in response to a “framework” to restart mediation talks presented by Canada Post, “The union has been ready to return to the mediation process since it was suspended by the government’s special mediator. As such, our counterproposals include movement on both our demands and employer’s demands to help bring the parties closer to an agreement.”

Any such “agreement” will be between the bosses and union bureaucrats, not the rank and file. It will include plans to “Amazonify” Canada Post and open the floodgates for major attacks on workers across the public and private sectors.

The PWRFC was established in June by workers who recognized that to achieve their demands, they must take control of their fight in their own hands. It fights in opposition to the CUPW and CLC bureaucracies to prevent workers from being confined to the pro-employer “collective bargaining” framework, and to make the strike the spearhead of a mass industrial and political movement of workers to defend all public services, and use society’s vast wealth to realize the social needs of the vast majority, not private profits for the few.

Sunday’s public meeting will provide a platform for workers to speak out about what they think the main issues in their strike are and how it can be led to victory. We encourage postal workers all over the world to attend as well as workers throughout the transport, logistics and other industries.

In addition to PWRFC members, the meeting will be addressed by members of the Socialist Equality Party (Canada), which published a recent statement calling for the broadest mobilization of the working class in defence of the striking postal workers. The statement declared,

To break out of the stranglehold of the trade union/New Democratic Party/Liberal alliance—the prerequisite for mobilizing the industrial and political power of the working class—workers must take the struggle into their own hands by building rank-and-file committees. Successful defiance of an impending intervention by the government to break the postal workers’ strike and impose Canada Post’s demands will only be possible if broader sections of workers are mobilized in an industrial and political movement to bring down the Trudeau government and fight for the transfer of political power to the working class.

To take up the fight for this program, register to attend the PWRFC’s Sunday meeting at 1 p.m. Eastern time. Alternatively, you can contact the Committee at canadapostworkersrfc@gmail.com or fill out the form below.