Postal workers strike in Montreal

Canadian postal workers were on a 24-hour strike in Montreal Monday to protest concessions the post office says are needed due to declining mail volumes. The strike, the third in a planned series of rotating strikes, began shortly before midnight Sunday and followed a 48-hour strike over the weekend in the port city of Hamilton, Ontario, and a 24-hour strike beginning late Thursday night in Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba. "Montreal is another place where Canada Post has already begun its $2 billion postal transformation," Canadian Union of Postal Workers President Denis Lemelin said in a statement. "As we saw in Winnipeg, Montreal postal workers are being forced to work with new machines and methods without proper safety studies beforehand." He said the modernization program resulted in a 15 percent rise in worker injuries, as well as a sharp decline in customer service. Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. the new methods were needed, due to a 17 percent drop in the service's core letter mail business and a pension deficit of $3.2 billion. He said the postal service had met almost weekly with the union over the changes since 2008. The two sides have been negotiating for seven months. The rolling strikes are "to keep the pressure on negotiations," Lemelin said. "We will not accept the rollbacks that a profitable company is trying to force us to swallow." Canada Post, a nationwide government corporation, offered a starting wage of $19 an hour and to temporarily shelve a controversial disability program, which the union rejected and made a counter-offer, which Canada Post said Sunday it was reviewing. The current average starting wage for postal workers is $23 an hour. Canada Post reported little disruption to its postal deliveries due to the strikes. In the event of a nationwide strike, Canada Post will cease nearly all mail delivery, except for monthly social-assistance payments such as social security and veterans checks and welfare and child-benefit checks. Residents can call 1-800-OCANADA for more information.