We encourage all postal workers to contact the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee at canadapostworkersrfc@gmail.com or by filling out the form at the end of this article.

A Carney Liberal government-imposed vote is now underway on “final offers” from Canada Post management, aimed at forcing through massive concessions on more than 55,000 urban and rural postal workers across the country.

The online vote, which began Monday and runs through 5 p.m. on August 2, is the latest in a series of anti-democratic moves coordinated by the Crown corporation, the Liberal government under Prime Ministers Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney, and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) apparatus to break rank-and-file opposition to a major assault on the postal service.

Serious concerns over the use of online balloting have been raised widely by workers. Thousands face practical and technical barriers to casting a vote. Older workers, those with limited digital access, and employees in rural or remote regions have struggled to obtain login credentials or decipher conflicting communications from the union and the unelected Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB), which banned a strike by postal workers last December at the orders of Labour Minister Steve MacKinnon. The absence of clear, accessible procedures has left many uncertain if their votes will even be counted.

The rotten offers urban postal operations workers and rural and suburban mail carriers are being forced to vote on would implement new categories of part-time, precarious workers to expand parcel delivery to seven days a week. They would impose “dynamic routing” and AI-based surveillance to intensify workloads and eliminate even brief moments of downtime. They offer below-inflation wage increases and—most critically—lay the structural foundation for eliminating tens of thousands of jobs.

The blueprint for this came straight from the Industrial Inquiry Commission (IIC), established by the federal government at Canada Post’s request as part of the strike ban. Arbitrator William Kaplan, a longtime favourite of big business, was appointed to head the IIC, which dutifully produced a report advocating sweeping changes to make the postal service “profitable” and “competitive.”

That report, and the “final offers” derived from it, represent the latest shots in a full-scale campaign to “Amazonify” Canada Post in the name of returning the publicly controlled corporation to profitability. The goal is to replicate the low-wage, high-speed, back-breaking model pioneered by Amazon and other private delivery giants, using automation, surveillance, and precarious labour to drive profits for corporate clients and e-commerce platforms. This would come at the direct expense of postal workers and all workers, who will face similar attacks on their jobs and conditions if postal workers are defeated.

Carleton University business professor Ian Lee, a former Canada Post executive and prominent supporter of postal privatization, has openly stated that eliminating as many as 40,000 jobs is necessary to “save” the post office.

Under these conditions, which pose existential questions for the future of every postal worker, the CUPW bureaucracy has done nothing to mount a fight. Instead of mobilizing postal workers—and the working class more broadly—to defend jobs and all public services against destruction, the union has begged management and the federal government to “do the right thing.” Its proposals have not been demands to protect jobs and conditions, but suggestions for how Canada Post could improve profitability. Rather than fighting for public ownership and broadening the struggle to other workers facing similar attacks, the union apparatus has accepted the entire framework of restructuring.

The union bureaucracy’s betrayals are not new. Last December, when workers were demanding mass defiance of the government’s back-to-work order, the CUPW leadership folded without a fight. It accepted the strikebreaking initiative as legitimate and welcomed the creation of the IIC, portraying it absurdly as a platform for workers to have their “voices” heard. What it really did was buy time—for the government and management to finalize their plans, and for the union to demobilize opposition.

Before the current vote was forced by Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu in conjunction with the unelected CIRB, CUPW had called for binding arbitration. This would have stripped workers of their right to vote on any agreement at all, handing the final decision to an government-appointed arbitrator.

Now that the CIRB and Hajdu have intervened to force a ratification vote, the union claims to oppose the contract—but only in words. It has explicitly ruled out strike action or any form of industrial struggle, insisting that a “No” vote will somehow persuade management to finally negotiate in good faith and present a “fair” deal for postal workers. But nothing in the past year suggests that Canada Post or the government are willing to concede anything. Their goal is clear: force through massive concessions, then move rapidly to implement automation, restructure the workforce, and cut jobs.

The union has done everything it can to suppress opposition and demoralize workers. A national Zoom call held on July 16 was a tightly scripted event. Workers were not allowed to speak, ask questions live, or even use a public chat. All communication was funnelled through a private Q&A function, where inquiries were ignored or deflected.

Daniel Berkley, a Canada Post worker and member of the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (PWRFC), told the World Socialist Web Site, “The CUPW used this meeting to wash their hands of responsibility and push all the blame on the corporation. They even admitted that this contract is just a ‘down payment’ on the next round of cuts.”

Berkley submitted multiple questions and received no reply. “The only response I got was a prompt to keep using the Q&A function,” he said. “They’re silencing their own members.” CUPW President Jan Simpson concluded the call by lamenting that “the NDP is no longer in the House to be our voice,” after a debacle in this spring’s parliamentary election reduced them to just seven seats, and called on workers to vote “No” to send a message to management.

But it was the NDP that kept the Liberals in power as they employed strikebreaking manoeuvres in previous struggles on the docks, railroads and elsewhere. And it is the CUPW bureaucracy that has consistently boosted this pro-capitalist party as a vehicle for the working class.

What is now being voted on is not the product of free negotiations. It’s a corporate and state diktat. And the CUPW leadership has no intention of challenging it. That task falls to the rank and file.

The PWRFC has called for a resounding “No” vote, not as an empty protest but as the beginning of a new strategy—one based on the active mobilization of postal workers across the country and the formation of independent rank-and-file committees in every facility. These committees will make it possible for workers to take the initiative, prepare for strike action, and fight for the defence of all jobs and the transformation of Canada Post into a public utility run to meet social needs, not private profit.

This is not a fight that can be won by postal workers alone. Recent struggles among dockworkers, railway workers, autoworkers, nurses, teachers, and others show that working people across Canada are confronting the same issues: falling real wages, privatization, increasing exploitation, and the gutting of public services. CUPW, collaborating closely with the Canadian Labour Congress and Unifor, has deliberately isolated postal workers from other sections of workers in order to prevent the emergence of a broader unified struggle that could escape their control and break the straitjacket of the pro-employer “collective bargaining” system. The rank and file must do what the leadership refuses to—link up these fights and call for joint action, including coordinated strikes.

Nor can the postal workers’ struggle be successful by simply showing a bit more militancy. AS the PWRFC insisted in its latest statement, the broadening of the struggle to other sections of workers must be combined with a new political perspective capable of counterposing workers’ demands for secure jobs to the capitalists’ push for austerity and privatization.

The statement declared,

This fight is not just about us postal workers. The Carney government is setting a precedent for mass job cuts, privatization, and state repression across the country in order to pay for billions in new military spending in preparation for war against Canada’s “enemies”—with Russia and China at the top of the list. The attack on the post office is just one front in a broader assault to finance war spending and enrich the corporate elite.

The right to strike is under coordinated attack in federal and provincial jurisdictions; AI and surveillance tech are being weaponized to intensify exploitation; healthcare and other public services are being gutted for profit.

Postal workers can and must draw a line in the sand. We remain in a powerful position because the things that we are fighting for and against are of pivotal importance to all workers. But only if we act collectively and build a new leadership from below.

Support for this perspective is growing. “We should be calling for a general strike,” one postal worker told the WSWS in response to CUPW ruling out strike action. “This fight isn’t just about our contracts—it affects every worker in the country.”

These struggles are global in scope. Postal workers across Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States are facing nearly identical restructuring schemes. That’s why the PWRFC is affiliated with the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), which is working to unite workers worldwide to fight back against transnational corporations and austerity-driven governments.

The writing is on the wall. Canada Post, with the full backing of the Carney Liberals, is preparing to carry out a major restructuring in the name of profit. It will come at the cost of thousands of jobs, degraded conditions, and the dismantling of the postal service as a public institution. The union has made its position clear: it will do nothing to stop this. That task now falls to workers themselves.

To all those who want to fight: vote No. Join the PWRFC. Build rank-and-file committees in your depots, sorting plants, and delivery centres. Prepare for a real struggle—not just to reject this contract, but to chart a new course for postal workers and the working class as a whole.