Picket lines up as Canada Post technical employees launch strike

This is not about mail service, prices or wages but it is about cost. Canada Post has made multi-millions in profit every year for the past 14 years. They now want to offload some of their costs on to the Employment Insurance system. The costs will still exist but now they will be paid by each and every one of us who pay EI premiums instead of by a corporation who is making millions and millions of dollars in profits every year. How can anyone be angry that the UPCE is trying to stop this? Do those of you who feel that postal employees are lazy and ineffectual really want to start paying for their sick time?

Every Canadian should make a decent wage and feel secure enough to take out a mortgage and make non-essential purchases. This is what will keep the economy going. How is wishing and hoping that everyone will have low wages and no benefits just because some people do going to help the upcoming economic crisis?

I am a 19 year Canada Post UPCE employee and I am walking the picket line. I am a single parent and the sole source of income for my family. To all those who wish me such ill will: you want me to hurt and believe me I am. My daughter will not be enjoying Christmas this year. I don't think I will be able to pay my rent come January. Today I will walk the line for hours in a -30 windchill. Do you really think I'd be doing this if it was only about a couple of bucks an hour? Do you really think I'd do this to my child because I'm greedy? I don't want any more than I already have; I just don't want them to take away more.

....support both sides,here,tooooooooooo booooooot.....GOD Bless....eh.....

Thank you.

I have been reading the comments on other forums and I have been crying. So many people seem to think that I am a greedy grasping leech trying to get more than I deserve from a corporation that is failing it's customers. I am a person who works as hard as I can at a job that I am grateful to have. I am trying to raise a child that will be an asset to her community rather than a vandal, delinquent or a criminal. The very fact that I still have a job demonstrates that I am necessary because Canada Post has been cutting every position that it possibly can for the past few years and would have gotten rid of me if they could. My performance appraisals have always been great. I earn my sick leave and leave it in the 'bank' as insurance in case the worst should happen. This was a battle already fought and I deserve it. Yes, I DESERVE it. This was the pact I made with my employer and I have upheld my end of that pact. I contribute to the corporation's bottom line and I expect to be valued and cared for if and when I cannot work. If I am forced into a minimum wage job or onto social assistance I will no longer be a force behind a strong economy and my child's future will be bleak.

I am not a greedy person, or a lazy person or a person who thinks that the world owes her a living. I have pride, I have dignity, I have a strong work ethic. I strive to live and raise my child above the poverty line, if only slightly above:(because if you think that $20 an hour for the sole earner in the home is luxurious you are not doing the math.) Yes, some people earn $8 an hour; this is wrong and should be protested. My regular position at Canada Post is only part-time and so I supplement with a waitress job, at $8 dollars an hour, which is FAR harder than my better paid position at Canada Post. This is so far skewed off the fairness meter that I don't even know what to say about it.

The point that I am trying to make is that I am not a lazy government employee who doesn't know when she has it good or how much harder it could be. I know. I'm there. None of us who are on strike right now planned to do so just before Christmas: this couldn't have been worse for us if we'd dreamed it in our nightmares. It IS a nightmare. I wish it would stop, that it would be over. I wish I could go back to doing my job and earning my way.

http://www.topix.net/world/canada/2008/11/pic...

....still SUPPORT both sides,here,tooooooooooooooooo boooot!!!GOD Bless...The hillbilly farmboy has spoken......eh...

I just know that the last time Canada Post went on strike I had to start paying my bills on the phone from my bank account. I never went back to using Canada Post again I may mail one letter a month as opposed to approx 10 bill payments. If they strike again I'll probably quit using the service completely.

.....CANADA POST...is still a part of Me life,tooooo boooot.....eh....onward....eh.

more money to the unions eh, Canada post needs to be supporrted, same as the car compamys and the cbc....

My mother has to be on strike from the Philatelic after she worked crazy overtime to just get by. Now she has to be in Halifax picketing to get enough money to pay our rent and working terrible hours like 8pm to 2am in the cold. I'm working and in my last year of high school and this couldn't have come at a worse time for us. If she wasn't picketing we wouldn't have a christmas tree, wouldn't have food.. and probably wouldn't have a home for the holidays. She is staying positive, though, unlike the others who hang their head and complain. Instead, she sings and dances and tries to lift everyone's spirits long enough to get through the day. Those who are saying the workers are greedy have no idea what they're talking about and should get their head out of their own asses long enough to see, respect and support what the workers are doing.