Inside Postal Workers: The Labour Process, State Policy, and the Workers' Response
1986; Athabasca University Press; Volume: 18; Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/25142676
ISSN1911-4842
Autores Tópico(s)Labor Movements and Unions
ResumoDECLINING REAL WAGES and pressure to increase productivity pushed Canadian postal workers to a national wildcat strike in 1965. After this achievement they began a series of day-to-day battles to extend their shopfloor power. Reacting to this, postal management embarked on a mechanization project to transform the labour process. New federal labour laws were enacted which stifled the expression of workers' power through their union. The national union officials proved unable to break out of these bureaucratic structures that cut them off from the rank and file. An abrupt national wildcat/sitdown strike in 1974 resulted in a change in the national union leadership. Solid victories were won dealing with the transition to new mechanized plants. However, management began a counterattack aimed a weakening worker solidarity by hiring non-union workers and refusal to honour the collective agreement. The stage is then set for a series of local wildcats in the late 1970s, the Toronto strike of December 1977, and the national strike in 1978. The postal workers' past and present is summed up with a view to future struggles. EN 1965, UNE BAISSE des salaires reels et des tentatives d'augmenter la productivite pousserent les employes des Postes canadiennes a declencher une greve sauvage a l'echelle nationale. Apres cet exploit, ils commencerent une serie de luttes au jour le jour pour mieux controler leur milieu de travail. Le gouvernement federal promulgua alors de nouvelles lois qui eurent pour effet de restreindre le pouvoir des travailleurs(euses) dans leur syndicat. Les dirigeants du syndicat national furent incapables de briser le carcan des structures bureaucratiques qui les coupaient de la base. En 1974, une greve spontanee eut pour resultat de changer la direction du syndicat. D'importantes victoires furent gagnees concernant la transition vers une nouvelle mecanisation du travail. L'administration lanca cependant une contre-attaque dans le but d'affaiblir la solidarite ouvriere en engageant des travailleurs(euses) non-syndiques(ees) et en refusant de respecter la convention collective. Le terrain etait donc prepare pour une serie de greves locales a la fin des annees 1960s, pour la greve de Toronto en 1977 et pour la greve nationale de 1978. La situation passee et presente des travailleurs(euses) postaux est resumee dans l'optique de leurs luttes a venir.
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