Monday October 29 2018

Earlier this year an arbitrator ruled that the work of Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers (RSMC) is of equal value to their urban counterparts, but there are still numerous issues to address before RSMCs have rights and conditions that are truly equal. Two of these issues are:

Pay For All Hours Worked

RSMCs are paid for their estimated time, regardless of how many hours they actually work.  For example, if a RSMC’s route is scheduled for 5 hours and it takes 8 hours to complete, the RSMC gets paid for only 5 hours.

To achieve equality with Urban letter carriers, RSMCs must be paid for all hours worked beyond their scheduled hours. RSMCs must also be paid overtime when working over 8 hours per day or on their scheduled days off.

Guaranteed Minimum Hours

Canada Post Corporation (CPC) has the liberty to restructure and create new routes. There is no guarantee that the current pay and hours would be the same following a route change, which could significantly reduce an RSMC’s wages. In the recent pay equity decision, Arbitrator Flynn stated that Mr. Rob Sinclair from Canada Post said:

“that the average for RMS hours for new routes was 6.1 but mentions that this is not a company policy. He adds that the Corporation would rather build all its routes around 3 RMS hours, except that this would upset the Union and workers…”

This statement proves that there must be a system that protects the daily hours and income for RSMCs during restructures.

There are many recent examples of restructures where RSMCs have had their pay cut by thousands of dollars per year, which also negatively impacts their pensions.

Other Inequalities We Are Working to Eliminate

To achieve equal conditions, we also need:

  • To make CPC responsible for covering all RSMC absences
  • RSMCs must be paid directly by CPC while off due to a work-related injury
  • Eligibility for post-retirement benefits should be based on years of service since 2004 (when RSMCs became CUPW members) instead of January 1, 2016
  • Job Security

RSMC’s work is of equal value to the work of Urban letter carriers.  It is time for Canada Post to respect RSMCs.

Support your negotiators and stay informed on twitter (@cupw) and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/cupwsttp/. For regular email updates with all the latest, join eDigest: https://www.cupw.ca/cupw-eDigest,/span>

Equal working conditions for all!