News

Canada Post to privatise 300 contact centre jobs across Canada



The Public Service Alliance of Canada, the largest federal public service union in the country, will be taking swift action to prevent Canada Post from privatising an important part of its operations. Yesterday, the crown corporation announced that it would outsource its contact centres and the National Philatelic Centre, resulting in the elimination of more than 300 jobs across the country.



Affected locations include:



• Edmonton

• Ottawa

• Winnipeg

• Antigonish

• Fredericton



“This obsession with privatisation will badly damage the quality of the Canadian postal service as well as the communities it serves,” said Robyn Benson, the PSAC Regional Executive Vice-President for the Prairies. “Many regions in the country will lose local contact with Canada Post as well as jobs that are important for the local economy,” she added.



For Benson, the privatisation of Canada Post’s answering services also raises the question of protection of confidential information provided by Canadians.



“I’m not sure that Canadians are ready to see their postal service become an information collection agency for the American government,’ Benson said. “If an American company answers calls for Canada Post, then the U.S. Patriot Act gives the government access to all information the company collects. Is that what Canadians want?”



Richard Deslauriers, the National President of PSAC component, the Union of Postal and Communications Employees (UPCE) said this type of economic reasoning will bring Canada Post closer to a complete privatisation.



“The privatisation of Canada Post has always been an objective of the current management and the conservative federal government,” Deslauriers said. “The slippery slope of partial privatisation of services will end up with Canada Post in the hands of private companies and Canadians will be deprived of a service they have relied on for decades”



UNI Global Union Head of Post & Logistics, Neil Anderson, said, "UNI and it's affiliates will stand beside the Canadian colleagues in trying to stop this needless outsourcing of work. UNI Post & Logistics totally agrees with UPCE that this is a foolish decision based on ideology. We must stop this creeping privatisation of our work in postal services. UNI demands of all governments that they promote quality public services and this can only be achieved with quality jobs in union hands!"