An employee at Canada Post Responds to the Macleans April 3 2006 Article entitled "What CUPW doesn’t know about Gandhi."

Will I get fired for exercising my charter right to free speech and posting this? Perhaps. But it is not illegal for me to express my opinion so I am not doing anything unlawful, despite Canada Post’s threats and intimidation. Regardless, I could not live with myself if I was silent on this issue in the face of such public dishonesty.

Before I begin my response, I will cite one simple concept. Many within the labour movement feel frustrated with the media. Large Corporations pay for advertising and if the media makes a report that may be true but offends one of their sponsors they run the risk of losing those sponsorship dollars. Hence the stereotype within the labour movement is that the media is biased.

The censorship was much more blatant when Conrad Black was buying up all the newspapers and media outlets and firing anyone who posted a Union friendly news report or should I say downsizing them in the name of mergers. Things have improved since then but not all. Now it is much more subtle and manipulative. TELUS blocking a Union web site on the Internet is but one example. Shutting down employee blogs on the Internet is yet another.

An example of how TELUS lied to the media is the off shore call centres. TELUS boldly declared that the Union claims about TELUS' intent to use off shore call centres was a lie. On labour day at the B.C. Fed Rally at the Boot in Burnaby, TELUS spokesperson Drew MacAurther was telling the media there were no plans for off shore call centres and several of the members started shouting out "Liar!". Shortly after that the Union proved them wrong and TELUS changed their story.

After they were proved wrong they claimed their original statement was that "No regular employee will lose their job as a result of contracting out." The same twist Moya Greene put on the Quebec plant closure. TELUS clarified that they will contract out but existing employees will be offered jobs elsewhere in the company. Jobs will be lost through autrician but every existing employee will still have a job. This does nothing for the Canadian economy or provide jobs for our children.

An example of TELUS job security is how they recently moved many B.C. jobs to Alberta and told the employees in Surrey you can still have a job if you are willing to sell your house and move your family to Edmonton. The problem is that there is nothing stopping TELUS from moving those B.C. jobs from Alberta to Ontario in six months then overseas six months after that. Employees argue this was the original intent because Darren Entwistle told the investors and shareholders in New York that their ability to send work overseas will greatly increase their profits. That is why investors continued to buy TELUS stocks during the labour dispute. The same time they were telling the media that it was a lie. On this sound clip, Darren Entwistle is caught on tape lying about the lockout.

One cartoonist drew a cartoon illustrating the widely held belief about TELUS' media manipulation during the biased reporting of the TELUS labour dispute. You did hear about TELUS Idol in the news didn't you? Oh that's right, you didn't. The media wouldn't run the story. I wonder why. I can and will site other examples but will save that for my rebuttal to the trigger happy lawyers at Canada Post who are threatening me with legal action to stop my charter right to free speech. If what they say is true and their only concern with my web site is a trademark violation, then their court application has ended because I have removed any Canada Post logos from my web site.

I will however, cite one example of conflict of interest within the media regarding Canada Post and Macleans. Look at all the free advertising Macleans got when Canada Post made this stamp to commemorate Maclean’s 100 anniversary. Does this apply? Of course not. It is not related at all. Much.

My concern with the Maclean’s article is that the reporter does not even interview the other side to get the other side of the story. What are some of the facts that employees of Canada Post are concerned about? I for one am concerned about Moya Greene’s privatization of CN Rail. Not that privatization is necessarily a bad thing. It is a bad thing in my opinion when the only reason you privatize a company is to exploit the employees, give massive raises to the corporate executives and hide from public accountability.

The CN derailments concern me. The lack of concern about all the toxic spills concern me. The lack of accountability to the public over the rise in spills concern me. Moya Greene’s track record at Bombardier concerns me. Moya Greene’s lack of experience in a service based industry concerns me. The list goes on.

After all the many sponsorship scandals the Liberal government has been involved in with Canada Post, the Unions request for greater public accountability is very logical and completely within reason. When an employee of Canada Post says I don’t want to have to take rollbacks because of Andre Oulette’s expense account that is not irrational as the Maclean’s article boldly declares.

When Moya Greene refused to fulfill her contractual obligation to consult with the Union before she closed the Quebec Post office she broke the law which was revealed in a court order she chose to ignore. As a customer and an employee of Canada Post I have many concerns about Moya Greene’s leadership and I have posted them on a web site that she is trying to censor at: http://www.moyagreene.com/ It is not a web site for her it is a web site about her.

No one knew anything about Moya Greene before her appointment as CEO of Canada Post by the Liberal Government. Me quoting her and posting the facts about her resume is not illegal. The public has a right to know. We need more public accountability at Canada Post not less. They have lied to the media in the past and I will testify to that fact.

All I ask is that you look at Moya Green’s employment history and listen to what Deborah Bourque has to say. Don’t believe everything she says but listen to her and let her have her say. Until then, I will never buy another Macleans magazine again. I’ll buy the Canadian edition of Times because they know a lot more about Gandhi than Macleans does. They regularly report on and honour Martin Luther King who followed Gandhi as his model.

I will quote one statement in the Macleans article that is just too much for me to stomach. The article states: "The postal system has run profitably since 1995, but all is not well. Last October Canada Post tabled a report to Parliament projecting that it will be losing money again within five years if it doesn’t make major changes to it’s business model."

What an outrageous statement to make. The Union has proved Canada Post continues to make record profits and continues to pay record tax and dividends to the Government. The Union has proved that the fax machine did not destroy lettermail volumes nor has the Internet. Mail volumes continue to rise despite Canada Post claims. This has been documented in Canada and the United States.

When an Employer submits a report that arbitrarily presents some magic numbers that contradict a 30 year trend and says "We anticipate we will one day start to lose money and for that reason have to make drastic roll backs now" I say, "Oh really? In that case, let’s just fire the coach, not the team."

Signed