Canada Post plans to go ahead with the delivery of controversial booklets this week, despite protests from Vancouver postal workers who refused to distribute the mail they called "homophobic."
"It hasn't gone out today because of all the attention and we wanted to make sure other mail wasn't disrupted," Lillian Au, communications manager for Canada Post's pacific region, told CTV.ca.
"But it will be going out as scheduled within the next three days, that's our time commitment to our client."
If the postal workers were to refuse to distribute the unaddressed booklets prepared by an Ontario-based religious group, they would be notified they were participating in an "illegal work stoppage," Au said.
When asked what the disciplinary action would entail, Au declined comment, saying it was an "internal matter."
Sixty-eight workers, who worked for a medium-sized postal facility in the Commercial Drive area, walked off the job for about 15 minutes Thursday morning rather than distribute a brochure they characterized as 'anti-gay.'
They decided to return to work after Canada Post decided not to pursue any disciplinary action against the workers, who refused to deliver the approximately 200 unsealed booklets.
But what the union called a "walkout" was termed a "coffee break" by Canada Post.
"As far as we see it, it was a coffee break, they are entitled to two coffee breaks a day," Au said.
President of the Vancouver local of the Canadian Union of postal Workers, Ken Mooney, told CTV.ca that the religious group picked the wrong community to receive the mail.
"Of all the communities to target, this is probably the poorest choice," Mooney said in a telephone interview from Vancouver.
"The consciousness of social issues is very high here," he said of the community he described as left-leaning.
Mooney said his office received several calls from offended local members regarding the booklet.
"It's a 28-page booklet I would character as nothing but a 28-page diatribe against members of the homosexual community. It's hate literature and nothing else," he said.
"It never should have been accepted for delivery by Canada Post," he said.
The pamphlet calls homosexuality "ungodly," "unhealthy," and "unnatural" and blames homosexual people for spreading AIDS by living without "any moral restraints."
The walkout sent the message that the postal workers "weren't going to take it. People are deeply offended by this literature," Mooney said.
Mooney is calling for Canada Post to implement a policy that would spell out its position for future cases such as this one.
"That way, we don't have to get them to stand off," he said.
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