Good evening, panel, and thank you very much for this opportunity to speak.
The last time public consultations were held in St. John's, Newfoundland, was in 2011, and we missed it. I received a phone call from a counterpart at the students' union who said that Canada Post management showed up in St. John's, invited a few friends, had a meeting, and then flew out.
My name is Craig Dyer. I am the president of the St. John's local. I represent 350-plus clerks, letter carriers, technicians, and rural and mail service couriers in the Avalon Peninsula area of Newfoundland.
These workers are parents, grandparents, community volunteers, Girl Guide leaders, C.L.B. leaders, volunteer firefighters, and coaches. In their hours off, they work with both the youth and the elderly. They are your neighbours, your relations, and your friends. They are hard-working, honest people who should be treated with respect in the workplace, but they aren't.
I've worked 27 years as a letter carrier in St. John's, and the sky started falling the second day. They are mismanaged, and we see it every day. Every day we watch the corporation waste money without any accountability, just because they can.
I would like to speak today about forced overtime, jobs, and service.
In the past five years in St. John's, we've had two major restructures reorganizing the letter carrier routes. One occurred in 2011 when the corporation invested $2 billion in the postal transformation. This started in 2007, and at the time we were in a global crisis. The federal government was pumping money into the economy and creating jobs, while Canada Post spent $1.8 billion—which is what your document says, but we believe it to be a little bit more, almost $2 billion—to eliminate jobs.
As a result, a grievance was filed, the corporation failed, and we lost 28% of our jobs then. We recouped a small percentage.
In 2015, just after the federal election, the corporation implemented community mailboxes and took service away from the door-to-door delivery of almost 28,000 residents in St. John's, Mount Pearl, and Kilbride. As a result, the corporation came back and did another reorganization, because they recognized there was an error, and we did create a few more jobs, but at that time we lost approximately 40% of our workforce.
These losses were not due to volumes but to changes in the way that Canada Post processes the mail. Since these changes, forced overtime has become a major issue in the St. John's depot. Staff is down significantly, and overtime is through the roof. We have letter carriers who now make $30,000 to $50,000 a year in overtime while people sit at home without a job.
The majority of the letter carriers only want to work their eight-hour day. I've been a carrier for 27 years, and I enjoy my job, and I enjoy working eight hours a day, but I also have a life. We have families and we have community commitments, but that isn't happening, and now the workers are feeling it. They are being harassed, mismanaged, intimidated, and bullied on a daily basis. You have to get your route done.
The employer, locally, doesn't trust our valued employees. They believe that the workers are the problem, and not the routes.
My counterparts and I have arbitrated several arbitration cases that were proven wrong, and we did receive more jobs back.
For years now workers have been forced to work overtime at time-and-a-half and two times their regular rate of pay with the hope of getting their routes done, while this work could be done more cheaply and more people could be employed. Daily there are arguments in the letter carrier depot about staffing and overtime. If you don't finish your route, you are reprimanded; if you do work overtime, you are reprimanded.
I'll just quickly go through some examples that are actual events that happened.
We have a volunteer fireman in our depot. He received a five-day suspension for refusing to work overtime, in the dark, and in unsafe conditions. He lost five days' pay. He had to go home to his partner and tell her why. Three years later we arbitrated, and of course the arbitrator ruled in our favour.
Another gentleman—and I can give names if you wish—received a five-day pay loss for not being able to justify his overtime. We sat in a meeting, and the person worked above pace expectations and should have worked more that day, but he received a five-day suspension. The supervisor who suspended him said, “Don't worry; you'll get it back in arbitration.”
I have a lot more, but I'd like to finish.
I talked to Mr. Whalen about this in his office. We have two women who recently returned from maternity leave. The employer has told one of them that they have to work overtime and find child care to take care of their child while they work overtime. One of those women has now moved to another job, and recently, within the last month, the other woman received a suspension because she has chosen her child over working overtime.
Canada Post can go in a favourable direction and we can create jobs in our community, just on the quantum of overtime and monies paid out.
Thank you very much.
