Canada Post Strike is On from the looks of things:

[CdnFox]

Canada Post receives strike notice; workers plan Friday walkout | CBC News

So at a time of great national upheaval and tariff threats and the like, the workers at Canada Post have basically decided to commit suicide.

There are proposals on the table to stop daily delivery at mail, and stop door-to-door services entirely. Honestly that appears to be there only chance. They blew through almost a billion dollars in losses last year, they don't have any more money to afford to pay people extra.

This is going to hurt business and put strain on our economy for no good reason. I suspect this is going to be a classic example of how unions manage to shoot their workers in their own feet.

Anyway, don't put anything in the mail so it gets resolved, I suspect that there's no avoiding this at this point in time

 

What will be interesting is to see if this drags on if Carney does anything about it or forces them back to work, or sits their like a lame duck while the economy takes the hit

Edited yesterday at 11:12 PM by CdnFox

[Army Guy]

It is time Canada post gets deleted or downsized in a new hybrid model...many other nations do the same thing....we've been blackmailed by this group for far to long....

[herbie]

Well given another 5 month extension they still can't settle dick.

It's time for legislatation that restructures them entirely and a new contract imposed.

Raise stamps to $2.00
Home deliver to Mon-Weds-Fridays
Move the unwanted carriers into parcel sorting or find a new job
Convert in city deliveries to BEVs, even low speed ones like British milk carts.
Keep rural office open, sell stamps, coins, etc there by vending machines only, automate self serve parcel sending (weight, size scan, pay by debit/credit)

Edited 22 hours ago by herbie

[CdnFox]

15 minutes ago, herbie said:

Well given another 5 month extension they still can't settle dick.

It's time for legislatation that restructures them entirely and a new contract imposed.

Raise stamps to $2.00
Home deliver to Mon-Weds-Fridays
Move the unwanted carriers into parcel sorting or find a new job
Convert in city deliveries to BEVs, even low speed ones like British milk carts.
Keep rural office open, sell stamps, coins, etc there by vending machines only, automate self serve parcel sending (weight, size scan, pay by debit/credit)

All good ideas, to be honest I don't think we even need 3 days a week delivery. One day a week should be fine. In this day and age if you need something faster you can sign up for email and checks could be automatically deposited

I would also say eliminate home delivery. People can go pick up their mail from a local box or a local office.

Business really needs to move away from this crap anyway and so does the government.

[herbie]

We already do go to the Post Office to get our mail here in toe boonies. If there's an Amazon pkg, there's a card in your mailbox and you get in line to get it.
If it's a huge delivery, it goes to a store that's arranged to be a Purolator drop off. They're understaffed and open and closed on a whim, not a good permanent alternative.

The suggestions I listed would ease the line-ups so clerks didn't need to measure, weigh and ;look up cost to send a parcel, rid the line of people buying stamps, commemerative coins, envelopes and doohickeys.
I also think 3 days a week is a good start, later go to Monday & Thursdays for door to door delivery.

Cut the staff by re-assignments, buyouts and minimize layoffs. Hire some Amazon/Fed Ex managers to teach them parcel handling tips.
And no mor of this raising stamps by pennies or nickel every year. $2.00 Jan 1

[CdnFox]

46 minutes ago, herbie said:

We already do go to the Post Office to get our mail here in toe boonies. If there's an Amazon pkg, there's a card in your mailbox and you get in line to get it.
If it's a huge delivery, it goes to a store that's arranged to be a Purolator drop off. They're understaffed and open and closed on a whim, not a good permanent alternative.

The suggestions I listed would ease the line-ups so clerks didn't need to measure, weigh and ;look up cost to send a parcel, rid the line of people buying stamps, commemerative coins, envelopes and doohickeys.
I also think 3 days a week is a good start, later go to Monday & Thursdays for door to door delivery.

Cut the staff by re-assignments, buyouts and minimize layoffs. Hire some Amazon/Fed Ex managers to teach them parcel handling tips.
And no mor of this raising stamps by pennies or nickel every year. $2.00 Jan 1

Come to think of it, maybe we should just give the mail to Amazon. The mail isn't delivered to my door but Amazon is willing to show up there   

Amazon seems to be able to deliver items that only cost $8 for free, we should just farm out the mail service to them and they can drop off the mail at the local mail depot on their way by and people can go there to pick it up. Which is what I have to do now for my nail anyway so I really don't see a problem

[cannuck]

11 hours ago, CdnFox said:

All good ideas, to be honest I don't think we even need 3 days a week delivery. One day a week should be fine. In this day and age if you need something faster you can sign up for email and checks could be automatically deposited

I would also say eliminate home delivery. People can go pick up their mail from a local box or a local office.

Business really needs to move away from this crap anyway and so does the government.

Business HAS moved away.  IMHO the last strike was the last spike (in the heart of Canada Post).  When I buy stuff online few vendors even offer snail mail as an alternative.   Only exceptions for me is I have 2 clients that still work with paper cheques, so need to pay courier prices to deal with them when the unions are busy trying the kill the very goose that laid the golden, rotting egg.

We have never had home delivery in our town/city of 11k (1.4k when we moved here) so I don't miss it.  By the same token Amazon seems to be able to affect home delivery here with non-brand contractors who are considerate, polite and effective.  Obviously they are also efficient - or amazon wouldn't keep using them.

Edited 10 hours ago by cannuck

[ExFlyer]

There are some good ideas here.
I agree mail can be in the street boxes as opposed to door to door delivery (I think most delivery is in the super boxes by now, especially in developments t[in the past 10 years). I also agree mail can be delivered once or twice a week.

Canada Post has to re think it's place in todays business world.

What I cannot understand is the asinine union. They are fully aware of Canada Post financial situation and are just putting their members on death row. Canada Post will downsize and members will lose their jobs.

What is worse, what kind of fools are behind their union? Can they not realize or understand that Canada Post is a failing institution?? That they are going to lose?

[Barquentine]

I often use Canada Post to send packages to the states. Their prices have gone up but they're still cheaper and more reliable than UPS and the others.

We get home delivery but 1 or 2 days a week would suffice.

Most postal workers actually don't make very high wages but Canada Post is dying the 'Death of a thousand cuts" (how I feel getting old).

I hope they can revise and streamline.

[Legato]

We have picked up our mail for the last 14 years. No problem.

I ordered some Beeswax ($13.59) from Amazon at 4.0 pm yesterday, it arrived at 10 am this morning.

[Aristides]

Canada Post needs to be rethunk but there is a definite need for it in more remote parts of Canada that are not served by courier services. 

[ExFlyer]

4 minutes ago, Aristides said:

Canada Post needs to be rethunk but there is a definite need for it in more remote parts of Canada that are not served by courier services. 

100% correct for rural areas.

Thing is, the cost has to be recoverable.

As long as unions demand more, then costs cannot be recovered and it will fail and unions will lose members due to downsizing.

[Aristides]

8 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

100% correct for rural areas.

Thing is, the cost has to be recoverable.

As long as unions demand more, then costs cannot be recovered and it will fail and unions will lose members due to downsizing.

You can't operate everything at a profit and still provide essential services. That's why we have governments. 

[ExFlyer]

2 minutes ago, Aristides said:

You can't operate everything at a profit and still provide essential services. That's why we have governments. 

For sure but the Post Office is not "government". It is a  Crown corporation with the obligations of that.
Also, if they lose "billions" of dollars per year, then the Post Office has to do something to alleviate that.

[Aristides]

4 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

For sure but the Post Office is not "government". It is a  Crown corporation with the obligations of that.
Also, if they lose "billions" of dollars per year, then the Post Office has to do something to alleviate that.

With all of today's electronic methods of communication I don't think a postal system can ever make money unless maybe  it becomes a major player in digital services itself. The status quo is not good enough but I don't see a postal service ever making money. If it could, we probably wouldn't need it.

[ExFlyer]

18 minutes ago, Aristides said:

With all of today's electronic methods of communication I don't think a postal system can ever make money unless maybe  it becomes a major player in digital services itself. The status quo is not good enough but I don't see a postal service ever making money. If it could, we probably wouldn't need it.

While I somewhat agree, if all the other carries can make money and stay in business why does Canada Post fail???

Perhaps Canada Post infrastructure and expenses and personnel need to be looked at very closely.

[herbie]

5 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

What I cannot understand is the asinine union. They are fully aware of Canada Post financial situation and are just putting their members on death row. Canada Post will downsize and members will lose their jobs.

The union is in an impossible position, they have to protect their members' wages, benefits and working conditions but the employers on shaky legs. They're gonna need to accept big job losses to protect who's left.

The Post Office, and other Crown Corporations are not there to turn a profit, govt is not a business no matter how hard righties try to convince you otherwise They're there to provide a service at the most cost effective way. Running a good service at break even is the goal.

[ExFlyer]

6 minutes ago, herbie said:

The union is in an impossible position, they have to protect their members' wages, benefits and working conditions but the employers on shaky legs. They're gonna need to accept big job losses to protect who's left.

The Post Office, and other Crown Corporations are not there to turn a profit, govt is not a business no matter how hard righties try to convince you otherwise They're there to provide a service at the most cost effective way. Running a good service at break even is the goal.

Nope, if the union would only be realistic, they would not have held Canadians hostage at Christmas. That backfired on them.

The union is fully aware of the financial situation Canada Post is in and under the cloak of protecting members is losing sup[port form Canadians. Without Canadian support, they will not get much and may lose, big time.

You are correct, crown corporations are not out to make a profit but, they are not out there to make billions in losses either.

Look at todays atmosphere about the CBC....Canada Post will be in the same situation. Will it be long before defund the Post Office will e the mantra of the conservatives?? The ones that lose are the union members.

I suspect there will be a major restructure of how the Post Office does business and many members will be out of work.

No one is convincing me to think otherwise, logic tells me that if you cannot do business then you fail and will close up or reduce all services to keep going.

[blackbird]

16 hours ago, herbie said:

The suggestions I listed would ease the line-ups so clerks didn't need to measure, weigh and ;look up cost to send a parcel, rid the line of people buying stamps, commemerative coins, envelopes and doohickeys.

Yes, you make some good suggestions.

If Walmart can do self check-out, why not the post office?   Everything should be automated and stamps should be $2.00.  They should be able to set up a couple automated kiosks in the local drug store post office where customers could weigh the parcels and everything should be automated.  The current system is very backward and inefficient.  It shouldn't cost $20 to mail a box of chocolates.  If Amazon can deliver packages for about $6 or $8, why can't the post office?  Mail delivery could be a couple times a week in the cities.  That should be enough.

Edited 3 hours ago by blackbird

[herbie]

A union being realistic is accepting a small increase in wages, 0 cuts in staff or benefits. As this postal situation has dragged on so damn long look at inflation since the last contract and figure out what a reasonable increase in salaru/benefits is.

Sure as hell isn't zero or 3%..... food and rent have skyrocketed, meat has doubled since the last contract was settled.
Only a govt order and restructuring will settle it and there will be much labour fallout even with that.