Read Paul Moist’s letter to Canada Post President Moya Greene, making the case for public postal services. Moist is speaking out against plans to privatize call centre and stamp operations at the crown corporation.
April 7, 2010
Moya Greene
President and Chief Executive Officer
Canada Post Corporation
2701 Riverside Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0B1
Dear Ms. Greene:
I am writing on behalf of the 600,000 members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees to express my concern about Canada Post’s plans to privatize its customer service call centres and the National Philatelic Centre.
Public postal services are an important part of the fabric of our communities and our country. They keep Canadians connected, and bolster local economies. CUPE supports the Public Service Alliance of Canada’s call to keep Canada Post’s operations public and rethink the restructuring of its contact centres.
Outsourcing call centre and stamp operations threatens to lower service quality and access, and could ultimately cost more. CUPE has conducted in-depth analysis of contracting out and privatization. Our research, and our members’ on-the-ground experience, demonstrates that privatizing is a short-sighted approach to service delivery.
Eliminating more than 300 decent, community-supporting jobs is a blow to municipalities struggling to recover from the recession, particularly smaller communities like Antigonish. Privatizing this vital point of contact will also fragment a once-integrated service, and Canadians may find it harder to access information about their postal services.
Contracting out these parts of Canada Post’s operations opens the door to more widespread privatization of our public postal services, something CUPE strongly opposes. Canada Post is a crown corporation on an extremely solid financial footing, with the capacity to adapt and modernize its operations without resorting to privatization.
I urge you to reconsider this restructuring plan, and instead find public solutions that work for our country’s postal services.
I look forward to your response, and invite a dialogue on these matters.
Yours truly,
PAUL MOIST
National President
c.c.:
John Gordon, National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada
Denis Lemelin, National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
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