Posted on: April 30, 2008  @ 11:20

May Day: International Workers’ Day

On this International Workers’ Day, I’d like to say how proud I am to be a worker and a member of the working class. For me, May Day is always a special time to remember our struggle to protect universal public postal service, and remind ourselves that it is the working class, through its struggles and demands, that is changing the world for the better.

Canada Post just published its annual report. It reveals that in 2007 the Corporation delivered more than 11 billion items to nearly 15 million recipients. Who prepared that mail? Who sorted it? Who delivered it door-to-door in all kinds of weather? It is we, the postal workers. And thanks to us, Canada Post was able to record a surplus for a 13th year in a row.

The same applies in every other sector of the economy. Workers are the ones producing the wealth, here and around the world. We should therefore share in its benefits. Unfortunately, all over the world, workers are being hurt by deregulation and privatization, and transnational corporations, from one continent to the next, are pocketing the profits. Nevertheless, workers everywhere are standing up to claim their rights and to say loud and clear that another world is possible and that we’re all working on it together, in solidarity.

On International Workers’ Day, it’s worth remembering the first verse of Solidarity Forever:

“When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun.
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?
For the union makes us strong.”

This is the unity that we must build through our daily struggles to maintain universal public postal service.

The struggle continues.

In solidarity,

Denis Lemelin
National President

 

cupe 1979 / cope 225