Canada Post Strike

[compman_55]

So I was hoping to get some other thoughts on the Canada Post strike. I will admit I am a younger person who uses tech for pretty much everything and I only rely on on the post to send my rent cheques and get my ebay goods.

 

My feeling is that in today's day we don't really need post five days per week? Do we really need to be giving people raises and huge pensions for delivering post? Could we not privatize the post and end this ridiculous strike?

 

It's quite simple in my mind, less post = less revenue. The post office almost never made money. Today they make less. Why should ppl be paid more?

 

Thoughts?

[Hyphnip]

So far, I haven't noticed a change in my life because of this strike, but that will change soon. I should be getting a letter about renewing my drivers license and car registration, any day now and I kind of need those.

Also, as someone with parents who are older than most, I know they rely on mail more than people in our generation do.

I think that to say we don't need mail 5 days a week is not true though. Watch a mailman sometime, every day, his bag is full and he usually seems to follow the same general schedule daily. (he's usually at our house around 11:30) So, if these guys are working 8 hour days every day, and you cut them down to working say, 3 days a week, they will just have more mail to deliver on those three days and will probably need to work overtime to do that.

I don't think there is an easy solution at this point. Paying more will raise the cost of mailing anything which will eventually contribute to needing to raise the cost of living which will lead to postal workers wanting more money.

[compman_55]

I somewhat agree with you but the volume of post is only going to continue to shrink over the next decade. Especially as the older generations pass on. If a stance is not taken now when volume is at ~70% of its old capacity what will happen when it is 40% of capacity and you have more people working for the post than their is mail to deliver? They all get paid whether there is mail or not!

[Lauren]

let's deal with a lower capacity when there is a lower capacity. delivering the mail 3 times a week means that you have to wait twice as long for things to get to you. if you are sending mail nowadays, chances are it has to do with the crucials, like tax, driving or banking stuff. if i had to wait one more day for osap to get my paperwork, that could mean a day i couldn't eat. and that's just my middle class perspective.. what happens if you rely on government assistance? what if you can't afford a computer and regular internet access, and have to do a lot more snail mail stuff? and the last thing we need to do is privatize. the union gets so much because it's a shitty job. walking around for 6-8 hours a day, regardless of weather or personal injury. private companies have no appreciation for the type of loyalty a person needs for this type of job.

[Crusader]

Think of it like this, if you take out the postal union, what do you think they'll do to the other unions? Some occupations actually need a union to keep certain companies from screwing over their employees, crushing the postal union now would just invite future trouble.

 

I'm still betting the government ends up deeming Canada Post an essential service though.

[ToadMan]

I don't have the facts on what a postal worker makes now. I think it's a shitty job, and I think they should be taken care of. I think that the staffing level should track the demand level and it probably does that already.

 

Also, moving to "Politics and Debate"

[Moonlight_Graham]

A lot of small businesses rely on Canada Post, and rural residents do as well as they do not have access to most (if not all) of the private courier services. Going to 3 days a week i don't think is realistic right now.

 

The strike isn't really very damaging because they are doing short-term rolling strikes from city to city. I believe it should be deemed an essential service, same with public bus transpo.

[compman_55]

All interesting points but if we shrival in the face of one unionized front, others seem to follow suit (see: AirCanada). Can every crown corp get a raise? The average salary deems to be $40-60 000 per year? Is this not enough already?

 

In Ontario we have people making $20+ per hour to sell alcohol. In Toronto ticket takers for the TTC also make $20+ to hand out tickets. I am just concerned if everyone keeps getting raises, it is not sustainable long term.

[ToadMan]

AirCanada is technically not a Crown Corp... The government just has a lot of investment in them.

 

That aside, salaries should be appropriate. I can't tell you if 40-60k is right for postal workers, I don't know their job. What I would say is that if a group of employees going on strike cripples a service, then those employees should be adequately compensated. It should also be noted that a strike should fail if the employees are demanding more than fair compensation. What I mean by that is that when unskilled labour (ticket rippers in your example) goes on strike, there is nothing to prevent hiring temp labour. That should mean that the unskilled labour has to balance their demands against how long they will hold out for them. I don't know if postal workers are specialized, but I assume it would be hard to replace them, so there is at least that.

[Crusader]

Looks like Canada Post just locked out all its employees!

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/0...ke.html?ref=rss

[LonelyWreckage]

let's deal with a lower capacity when there is a lower capacity. delivering the mail 3 times a week means that you have to wait twice as long for things to get to you. if you are sending mail nowadays, chances are it has to do with the crucials, like tax, driving or banking stuff. if i had to wait one more day for osap to get my paperwork, that could mean a day i couldn't eat. and that's just my middle class perspective.. what happens if you rely on government assistance? what if you can't afford a computer and regular internet access, and have to do a lot more snail mail stuff? and the last thing we need to do is privatize. the union gets so much because it's a shitty job. walking around for 6-8 hours a day, regardless of weather or personal injury. private companies have no appreciation for the type of loyalty a person needs for this type of job.

Agree with this. You forgot to mention the significant section of society who haven't the foggiest about this newfangled email nonsense - namely the elderly, who rely on post for all sorts - medicine, pension entitlements being the most obvious examples.

 

Also if your mail is anything like our Royal Mail, it wasn't designed to make money in the first place; it was designed to deliver a public service. So prices set at as low as they can go before making a loss to ensure accessibility for all, creating an equitable network that delivers to all - regardless how rural and hard to get to it is etc. Privatisation not only changes that ethos into profit-seeking-at-all-costs, but it doesn't even deliver your goal of breaking the strike, as we here regularly have strikes in once-nationalised businesses (British Airways most recently). I don't know how far Canada's gone in that direction, but privatisation here has a horrendous track-record, to the point where even the majority of our Tories - who voted for it - support renationalising/oppose anymore privatising (of course our neoliberal stooges of politicians don't listen and are in the process of part-privatising Royal Mail, against the public's wishes).

[Gomo]

Well thanks to this strike, I'm on week 3 waiting for Lights of Endangered Species. Maple Music told me it will "hopefully" get here by the end of this week. Oy.