United in Struggle

The East Van Workers Assembly (EVWA) stands with the 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) after the federal government’s latest back-to-work order. 

It could not be more obvious that the monopoly capitalist ruling class is actively moving to destroy the legally protected rights of Canadian workers to collectively bargain and strike. The CUPW order comes just one month after Labour Minister MacKinnon imposed binding arbitration on nearly 2,000 ILWU and CUPE port workers, and less than four months since 9,000 Teamsters railway workers were forced back to work. Postal workers aren’t new to this game, either. In 2011 and again in 2018, Canada-wide CUPW strikes were squashed by illegal back-to-work legislation, threatening severe penalties to any union members or locals that stayed out. Now the Liberals’ new favourite Labour Code section 107 has raised the stakes even further: the state can and will do “such things as the Minister deems necessary” to “maintain or secure industrial peace.” In legal terms, it’s a license to crush labour whenever and wherever corporate profits are on the line.

The government is once again exposing the myth of “labour peace” for what it really means: one-sided war on the working class.

It’s time to raise the level of our fight. In 2018, small numbers of militant workers were able to prolong the CUPW strike at many worksites by stepping up to keep the picket lines going, even when the postal workers legally couldn’t stand with them any longer. Now in 2024, we’re beginning to see the outline of a new, more powerful, workers’ movement emerging, and the same task lies before us. It’s up to all of us to fight for each other and deepen the unity of our class against big business, to advance step-by-step, one struggle at a time. Our “right to strike” means nothing if we can be legislated back to work by grossly undemocratic means. We need a political workers’ movement with militant unions at its core to truly be able to defend and advance the struggles of the workers on the frontlines who have fought against the assault on our right to strike: the 55,000 postal workers with CUPW, ILWU and CUPE port workers, and Teamsters railway workers. 

Solidarity with the postal workers!

Down with corporate-government collusion!

Advance the fight, defend the right to strike!