What a unique year it’s been so far for the world’s crucial postal systems and for us, the workers who make it all happen. The role of a reliable, secure, affordable universal public postal service has been in the spotlight during the pandemic as part of our infrastructure of coping and resilience.
What is World Post Day?
World Post Day marks the founding, in 1874, of the Universal Postal Union (UPU). It’s a day to celebrate and highlight the role of postal workers’ work in daily life. We’ve increased awareness this year of the service’s economic value, and the connectedness and stability that it brings.
The United Nations has a page on World Post Day: https://www.un.org/en/events/postday/
So does the UPU: https://www.upu.int/en/Universal-PostalUnion/Outreach-Campaigns/World-PostDay
At the second link above, you can see this year’s message from the UPU Director General on how postal services have delivered during the pandemic and helped slow the coronavirus’ spread, thanks primarily to the sacrifices and extra efforts of the world’s postal workers.
Part of that is thanks to the international coordination of postal workers’ unions. Our allies around the world are there for us when we’re in collective bargaining, and have also been active in the common fighting to protect postal workers on the job in pandemic conditions.
That experience has been the same for many postal systems, with a lot of wrinkles and special features in different places.
Here in Canada we’ve certainly felt the increase in support and gratitude for the service, and CUPW is working to make sure that support for our work translates into working conditions and public policy that recognize the public postal service as a crucial part of surviving this crisis and reducing the toll in terms of lives lost and in terms of economic damage.
CUPW is affiliated with UNI Global Union and the Universal Postal Union. Both have been jointly studying the recent experiences of postal systems and workers. On October 9 UNI will release a brochure about lessons learned from the COVID-19 experience internationally. On the 13th, they’ll release the joint study “Unions in the postal services of the future: A global survey on labor union representatives’ assessment of digitalization in the post and logistics sector.”
We’ll share that study and brochure when they appear. Remember October 9 and the crucial service we provide as postal workers.
In Solidarity,
Jan Simpson
National President