The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) recently asked Canada’s auditor general Michael Ferguson to “investigate what led Canada Post to fraudulently report workplace injuries and whether these decisions led to improper bonuses being paid to senior management.”
According to a statement released by the CUPW earlier this week, Canada Post changed the reporting of lost time injuries to provide accident frequency rather than a raw number of lost-time accidents—a move that would contradict Labour Canada’s definition of disabling injuries. The statement added the alleged “improper redefinition seems to be a deliberate attempt by Canada Post management to report a steady reduction in disabling injuries in 2011, 2012 and 2013.”
“There is no disputing that Canada Post submitted incomplete injury reports to Labour Canada for a number of years,” said CUPW National President Mike Palecek. “We’d like to know how this affected bonuses at Canada Post, which has the highest injury rate in the federal sector.”
A 2009 examination of Canada Post by the auditor general found manager scorecards recorded safety as the highest objective.
“This, coupled with the improper redefinition of disabling injuries by Canada Post, brings into question whether managers received bonuses that they weren’t entitled to,” reads the CUPW statement. “Canada Post reporting to Labour Canada has been negligible and faulty, and these errors have permitted Canada Post to understate the actual incidence rate of injuries. CUPW wants to know why this is happening and put an end to this misrepresentation.”