FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Canadian
Union of Postal Workers
SCARBOROUGH LOCAL
BULLETIN
Suite #12, 130 Dynamic Drive, Scarborough, Ontario M1V 5C9 tel:
416-412-1100 fax: 416-412-7887
Police Called to Unionville Station
to Enforce Rotation of Duties:
A Shameful
Abuse of Power by Station Superintendent
On the instructions
of Unionville Station Superintendent, Raj Paul, York Regional police were called
to the Unionville Postal Station in the early hours of the morning on Wednesday
29 April 2008. The police came there to evict an employee who could not, on her
doctor’s orders, follow a work hardening programme towards a full rotation of
duties schedule, as dictated by Manulife Financial.
This calling of the
police to remove the employee from the building represents a disgusting new low
level to which CPC officials, including its advisors at Manulife Insurance, are
prepared to stoop, to force workers to break the recommendations of their
doctors in terms of their health and safety.
It is not uncommon
for the Manulife Financial’s extremely subjective re-assessments of workers on
modified duties, to be in conflict with the recommendations of one’s personal
doctors. There is a civilized and sympathetic method of sorting out these
issues. One of these methods is certainly not the calling of the police to
remove a worker who reported for duty to perform 8 hours of work – like she had
done for the past 18 years.
This method is
certainly in violation of the Canadian Human Rights Act and the common sense
expected to be used by supervisory staff in sorting out difficulties pertaining
to injured or modified workers.
It is a well known
fact that there are many workers at Canada Post who over the years have been
accommodated with appropriate assistive devices, including ergonomic chairs,
special sortation cases etc., to have them accomplish their hours of work in as
productive and as safe a manner as possible. It will require far more skills
than calling the police in the early morning hours if adjustments are to be made
in the accommodated methods with which these workers have become familiar.
It is extremely
discriminatory and borders on the inhumane when modified workers are being
randomly picked and being subjected to this humiliating treatment by management
and it medical health provider Manulife Financial. Additionally it is extremely
disruptive to people’s personal lives when they are being driven onto state
assistance such as Medical Unemployment (paid just over half of their wages and
for a limited number of weeks) when they are productive employees whose
impediments may only be inhibiting them from performing a few duties at Canada
Post or whose required accommodation takes skin of no one’s back.
It is bullying and
an extreme violation of the law in every form when people are being sent home
and being declared as Absent With Out Leave (AWOL) because they are being thrown
off the job and police are being called to remove them from the workplace for
the simple reason that they turned up for work and asked to be allowed to
perform the duties which they were doing yesterday and the day before and the
day before that, for 18 years.
This situation
calls for all workers to stand in solidarity and unity with each other. Today it
is the injured and modified workers being attacked. Tomorrow it will be those
who are not injured or modified. Workers at Unionville must stand as one in
opposing these oppressive actions of management. AN ATTACK ON ONE IS AN ATTACK
ON ALL !!
In Solidarity,
Learie Charles
Learie Charles
Grievance Officer
May 7, 2008
For More Information Contact:
Scarborough Local, CUPW
130 Dynamic Dr. #12, Scarborough, ON, M1V 5C9
Tel: 416-412-1100
FAX: 416-412-7887
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