Some union leaders need to be schooled in the concept of "unintended consequences". I do like Canada Post for what it does well but how can union leaders be so oblivious to the pressures of our times. Striking before Christmas merely angers...everyone. Effective strikes need public support and this is no way to get it. This reminds me of the Toronto garbage strike that gave rise to Rob Ford. Brilliantly played, people.
Yes, there's lots of lousy union leaders but there's even more lousy bosses. Over time I figured out that 90 +% of labour difficulties are really management difficulties. This strike seems to be a combination of both.
J.R. I think that you can safely assume that the "leaders" (oxymoron, much?) of CUPW are all disciples of the late Joe Davidson, President of that union in the 1970s who famously said, "To Hell with the public!" - an honest, verbatim quote of Joe.
So, as I say, the "leaders" learned from someone who had that mindset.
I agree with the writer's theme - CUPE has written a long suicide note.
Two caveats. First, it is evident that the private sector cannot, at present, duplicate the volume of parcels that Canada Post manages. Parcels are the biggest component of the business. Duplicating that infrastructure will be a challenge but quite doable in the medium to long term.
Second, rural Canada depends on the mail far more than urban. Rural areas don't have the infrastructure of collection and distribution of parcels and so forth and I very much doubt the private sector will be interested absent subsidies of some kind. Ultimately doable given a bit of time.
Basically, Canada needs a discussion as to what it wants from a postal service. Options include: nothing, let the private sector do the job or not. Communications and so on allow alternatives on the whole. Or two, sharply reduced service - one delivery a week, say. Perhaps, 100% conversion to community letterboxes would save resources. And three, no doubt there are a lot of other ideas or options but what isn't doable is more money from the government to shore up a failing business model. My understanding is that is what the union wants and given the $3 billion in losses these past few years simply cannot happen.
Unfortunately for the union, they picked a bad time to walk out as the general public will be irritated beyond measure for the inconveniences associated with no Christmas mail. And, alas, the government is distracted beyond measure with a range of disasters that are far more important than squabbling over a dysfunctional and increasingly obsolescent service. I think months will be required to come to some sort of resolution. As a result, the public and its businesses will have established various "Plan B's" to get the job done and will never be back.
Ian, it's CUPW, not CUPE by the way. I worked for 43 years at Canada Post and heard the same dire warnings during all that time. The problems of Canada Post can't be solved by the
union or management. They are the result of the obligations of Canada Post that are mandated by legislation. The policy of non Interference by government will not solve that. Hopefully this strike will be the impetus to fix that.
I think private delivery companies haven't been able to completely replace Canada Post's parcel delivery volume on relatively short notice during the Christmas rush. Give them a year and some predictability regarding the need to scale up, and they'll be there. Consider that a few years ago, Amazon was one of Canada Post's biggest parcel delivery clients. Over that period, Amazon's largely built their own delivery service from scratch in larger centers. They know how to do it, but unlike Canada Post, they won't add the capacity unless there's a business case.
Ian, you mention that rural areas depend on Canada Post far more than we in the city and I absolutely grant you that.
On the other hand, on the other hand ....
I live in Calgary and I have been in many smaller communities over the years. For many years a small town would have Greyhound freight dropped off at the store and the community would simply go to that store. Similarly, many of those same communities have post offices where people would go to pick up their mail. Finally, as you are aware, many stores today have post offices in them, sometimes with mail boxes for people to collect mail.
My point is that there are ways to service the rural areas. They are not as "nice" or as convenient as the CP system, perhaps, but what in life today is? I have had the non-luxury of a "super mailbox" for my mail for about thirty five years. I simply stop on the way home and check it - some days, not now - and that is what our rural confreres will have to do.
The post office is losing all sorts of money. I say that PP should shut it down and save a lot of bucks.
A network of lot of small delivery companies will arise to service the local deliveries and collection, and will work with and for the bigger and big delivery companies.
I think we're going to discover that the CUPW leadership is operating on a theory of Canada Post's status that's been seriously distorted by a lens of ideology. Canadian labour unions have often been influenced by ex-pat British trade union types who bring a hard core socialist philosophy complete with assumptions about inevitable class warfare. A proper socialist considers government control of services to be the ideal state of things, free from the crass profit motives of the private sector and a free hand to provide services, working conditions, and compensation unmoored from narrow-minded considerations of profit and loss.
They literally cannot conceive of a Canada without a government postal service. It's always been a thing, it's spelled out in law, they've always been able to win concessions from government! They figure they just need to ramp up the political pain, and the government will be forced to step in to provide whatever financial backstop Canada Post needs to meet their demands. Their timing would've been impeccable even a decade ago: a strike right during the Christmas shipping rush, plus a free-spending minority government dependent on a pro-labour left wing NDP. The miscalculation was that failure to understand finance, economics, and changing technology: their service is increasingly uncompetitive, irrelevant, and lacking the leverage needed to access evaporating government fiscal capacity. You'll often hear them grasping for magical solutions like introducing postal banking, without having the slightest explanation for what market need that would fulfill or why Canada should launch something that's fading away where it already exists.
Bottom line, CUPW is probably approaching this strike based on flawed calculations and is behaving irrationally for the same reason. At some point, the striking workers are going to realize they're further behind financially from the strike than their demands can possibly correct for. They're also looking at a near-inevitable majority government by an unfriendly Conservative government whenever the next election is called. I think prospects are looking pretty poor for Canada Post's continued survival...
I agree that CUPW and CUPE have an inflated view of their importance.
In urban areas, the loss of Canada Post may not be a big deal.
For the +/- 15% of us who live in rural areas however, it’s the loss of an essential service.
Even with GPS it is often tough to find someone’s location in the country.
What I don’t see in the articles and their comments about this issue are suggestions for solutions to a lack of mail service for those of us out here in the hinterland.
I suspect that solutions would emerge if Canada Post weren't in the picture. I don't think rural Canada is going to get next-day Amazon Prime delivery, but would be surprised if Amazon didn't set up a regular delivery run to service rural areas on a weekly cadence. Right now, Canada Post has an established network, so there's really no reason for competitors to step in to provide something that'll inevitably be more expensive and less convenient than Canada Post's subsidized service.
Mail delivery is going to get more expensive for rural areas without Canada Post, period. However, as this article points out, most letter mail can be replaced by electronic services. The advent of high speed satellite internet like Starlink also removes a barrier to access to those services for rural residents. That leaves parcel delivery, but I think it'll be a tough argument that Canada needs to subsidize Amazon deliveries.
I’m not impressed with Canada Post strike. What so wrong with sending old school Christmas Cards? Pseudo tech geeks continually act and talk like they know better and are smarter. I know my mom enjoyed receiving a card,call or visit. What’s so wrong with actually staying in contact with family and friends with something so personal? When was the last time any of you detractors have received a handwritten thank you card? So many ‘folks’ sneer at us rural dwellers by your comments,most don’t know what you are talking about. Mail is a back up system for us,we don’t have 100% internet service,one bar on our cell phone. I still carry cash,emergency tow money. Now someone is gonna say move…
"Scotiabank estimated that the writing and processing of a cheque cost anywhere between $9 and $25."
So, pray tell, if cheques are abandoned as you forecast, will the banks - make this singular, will the BNS - reduce service charges by the amount saved?
Yes! I was thinking the same. Not even as long ago as that, I remember a cost-cutting suggestion from Canada Post to begin having deliveries made to community postal boxes. I remember the uproar was overwhelming! How will our elderly manage? What about the handicapped? All good points, but there are solutions. God forbid anyone get inconvenienced these days.
The latest in a number of stories illustrating just how disastrous this strike will be for the postal union. More and more people and businesses will just give up on the post office, forcing it to dump its ridiculous business model of home delivery anywhere. What could the union possibly have thought would be the outcome of this walkout, coming at the Christmas season? That they really had a real gun to point at the head of the management that heads this rapidly sinking business? Or that the government would order them back? Sounds like the same old union story; we supply the labour, you management types figure out how to run the business, all the while making ridiculous demands of a company that bled $315 million just in the third quarter.
I believe that Canada absolutely needs a national postal service-- we're a large country with a small population and having reliable and (at least somewhat) affordable letter mail and parcel delivery to all corners of the country is an essential part of trying to make remote communities livable. The private sector isn't going to be able to deliver this service in a profitable manner, and I'm perfectly content with the idea that Canada Post will need to run on a subsidized model.
However, the idea that the union is going to handcuff management into not being able to cut jobs or introduce new technologies is ludicrous. The continuation of daily mail delivery, continuing to deliver flyer mail, and failing to transition to 100% community mailboxes (along with failing to make community mailboxes that can accommodate most of your average sized parcels) means that we've got an outdated organization providing a whole bunch of unnecessary service while failing to deliver on the essentials. Hopefully this strike will be a kick in the pants for the next Federal government to enact some serious postal reform.
When it comes to cheques in the mail, the one group who will struggle without that option will be that group of seniors who isn't comfortable with computers, particularly in rural areas not served by banks (which is to say more and more of them), who have heretofore thrown a cheque in the mail to pay a bill. It will require some time for this group to adapt to whatever the options are.
More people are finding out they don't need Canada post for much. Could anyone not live with a once weekly service? All I get by mail is my town tax bill and municipal water bill (it has figured out how to send bills online) and some flyers. I'm sure there are small businesses and charities that are affected, but a little ingenuity could solve those issues. This strike may also put a nail into the parcel delivery coffin for CP.
The main effect of the strike has been that I don't have a pile of flyers to throw out several times a week (never Fridays, for some reason, and often not when it's kind of rainy or hot...) There's one order I placed with an online company that they insisted on shipping with Canada Post despite the start of the strike, but that's been the only real negative consequence. More annoying than anything else...
I have tons of shipments delayed because of the strike. Even items not arriving by Canada Post are delayed because the courier companies are overwhelmed. Electronic birthday and Christmas greetings aren't quite the same as a physical card.
Why is residential mail still door to door when less than 25% of residences receive that luxury? Move everyone to community boxes and ignore the “old people won’t be able to access their mail” complaints as most are doing it now. Why is mail delivery still 5 days per week? I get extremely few mailings that I would consider so urgent that I need mail 5 days per week. I suggest the PO work 6 days per week and reduce residential mail delivery down to 2 days per week. That way only 1/3 of mail routes would be served each day leading to smaller staff requirements and less expense for the PO. If someone still truly believes they need daily mail then let them rent a box at a local postal outlet.
Perhaps the Gov't should just create a Crown Corp called The Rural Mail Delivery Company. Close down Canada Post as it is now entirely. The days of door to door daily mail delivery are over, and not needed in most of the country. Move on ... if small parcel delivery in urban areas is feasible the a private company will jump and the opportunity to deliver.
Brilliant analysis! Canada Post had an opportunity to build on its trusted reputation by exploring new business opportunities and it blew it. And that's largely because CUPW seems to ignore the realities and benefits of technological advancements.
Some union leaders need to be schooled in the concept of "unintended consequences". I do like Canada Post for what it does well but how can union leaders be so oblivious to the pressures of our times. Striking before Christmas merely angers...everyone. Effective strikes need public support and this is no way to get it. This reminds me of the Toronto garbage strike that gave rise to Rob Ford. Brilliantly played, people.
...when 1970s tactics conflict with a 2024 reality....
Over time I have figured this out - most union leaders these years have become very selfish troglodytes.
Yes, there's lots of lousy union leaders but there's even more lousy bosses. Over time I figured out that 90 +% of labour difficulties are really management difficulties. This strike seems to be a combination of both.
J.R. I think that you can safely assume that the "leaders" (oxymoron, much?) of CUPW are all disciples of the late Joe Davidson, President of that union in the 1970s who famously said, "To Hell with the public!" - an honest, verbatim quote of Joe.
So, as I say, the "leaders" learned from someone who had that mindset.
To be fair, CUPW has been a bit too focused on decrying Israel and supporting Hamas of late.
I agree with the writer's theme - CUPE has written a long suicide note.
Two caveats. First, it is evident that the private sector cannot, at present, duplicate the volume of parcels that Canada Post manages. Parcels are the biggest component of the business. Duplicating that infrastructure will be a challenge but quite doable in the medium to long term.
Second, rural Canada depends on the mail far more than urban. Rural areas don't have the infrastructure of collection and distribution of parcels and so forth and I very much doubt the private sector will be interested absent subsidies of some kind. Ultimately doable given a bit of time.
Basically, Canada needs a discussion as to what it wants from a postal service. Options include: nothing, let the private sector do the job or not. Communications and so on allow alternatives on the whole. Or two, sharply reduced service - one delivery a week, say. Perhaps, 100% conversion to community letterboxes would save resources. And three, no doubt there are a lot of other ideas or options but what isn't doable is more money from the government to shore up a failing business model. My understanding is that is what the union wants and given the $3 billion in losses these past few years simply cannot happen.
Unfortunately for the union, they picked a bad time to walk out as the general public will be irritated beyond measure for the inconveniences associated with no Christmas mail. And, alas, the government is distracted beyond measure with a range of disasters that are far more important than squabbling over a dysfunctional and increasingly obsolescent service. I think months will be required to come to some sort of resolution. As a result, the public and its businesses will have established various "Plan B's" to get the job done and will never be back.
Indeed, a suicide note...
Ian, it's CUPW, not CUPE by the way. I worked for 43 years at Canada Post and heard the same dire warnings during all that time. The problems of Canada Post can't be solved by the
union or management. They are the result of the obligations of Canada Post that are mandated by legislation. The policy of non Interference by government will not solve that. Hopefully this strike will be the impetus to fix that.
I think private delivery companies haven't been able to completely replace Canada Post's parcel delivery volume on relatively short notice during the Christmas rush. Give them a year and some predictability regarding the need to scale up, and they'll be there. Consider that a few years ago, Amazon was one of Canada Post's biggest parcel delivery clients. Over that period, Amazon's largely built their own delivery service from scratch in larger centers. They know how to do it, but unlike Canada Post, they won't add the capacity unless there's a business case.
Ian, you mention that rural areas depend on Canada Post far more than we in the city and I absolutely grant you that.
On the other hand, on the other hand ....
I live in Calgary and I have been in many smaller communities over the years. For many years a small town would have Greyhound freight dropped off at the store and the community would simply go to that store. Similarly, many of those same communities have post offices where people would go to pick up their mail. Finally, as you are aware, many stores today have post offices in them, sometimes with mail boxes for people to collect mail.
My point is that there are ways to service the rural areas. They are not as "nice" or as convenient as the CP system, perhaps, but what in life today is? I have had the non-luxury of a "super mailbox" for my mail for about thirty five years. I simply stop on the way home and check it - some days, not now - and that is what our rural confreres will have to do.
The post office is losing all sorts of money. I say that PP should shut it down and save a lot of bucks.
A network of lot of small delivery companies will arise to service the local deliveries and collection, and will work with and for the bigger and big delivery companies.
Waiting for someone to mention that the Liberals will feel motivated to settle the strike by February in order to mail out the $250 cheques
Funny.
I think we're going to discover that the CUPW leadership is operating on a theory of Canada Post's status that's been seriously distorted by a lens of ideology. Canadian labour unions have often been influenced by ex-pat British trade union types who bring a hard core socialist philosophy complete with assumptions about inevitable class warfare. A proper socialist considers government control of services to be the ideal state of things, free from the crass profit motives of the private sector and a free hand to provide services, working conditions, and compensation unmoored from narrow-minded considerations of profit and loss.
They literally cannot conceive of a Canada without a government postal service. It's always been a thing, it's spelled out in law, they've always been able to win concessions from government! They figure they just need to ramp up the political pain, and the government will be forced to step in to provide whatever financial backstop Canada Post needs to meet their demands. Their timing would've been impeccable even a decade ago: a strike right during the Christmas shipping rush, plus a free-spending minority government dependent on a pro-labour left wing NDP. The miscalculation was that failure to understand finance, economics, and changing technology: their service is increasingly uncompetitive, irrelevant, and lacking the leverage needed to access evaporating government fiscal capacity. You'll often hear them grasping for magical solutions like introducing postal banking, without having the slightest explanation for what market need that would fulfill or why Canada should launch something that's fading away where it already exists.
Bottom line, CUPW is probably approaching this strike based on flawed calculations and is behaving irrationally for the same reason. At some point, the striking workers are going to realize they're further behind financially from the strike than their demands can possibly correct for. They're also looking at a near-inevitable majority government by an unfriendly Conservative government whenever the next election is called. I think prospects are looking pretty poor for Canada Post's continued survival...
I agree that CUPW and CUPE have an inflated view of their importance.
In urban areas, the loss of Canada Post may not be a big deal.
For the +/- 15% of us who live in rural areas however, it’s the loss of an essential service.
Even with GPS it is often tough to find someone’s location in the country.
What I don’t see in the articles and their comments about this issue are suggestions for solutions to a lack of mail service for those of us out here in the hinterland.
Yes. I tried three courier services to send gifts out to friends in rural Alberta and none of them could.
I suspect that solutions would emerge if Canada Post weren't in the picture. I don't think rural Canada is going to get next-day Amazon Prime delivery, but would be surprised if Amazon didn't set up a regular delivery run to service rural areas on a weekly cadence. Right now, Canada Post has an established network, so there's really no reason for competitors to step in to provide something that'll inevitably be more expensive and less convenient than Canada Post's subsidized service.
Mail delivery is going to get more expensive for rural areas without Canada Post, period. However, as this article points out, most letter mail can be replaced by electronic services. The advent of high speed satellite internet like Starlink also removes a barrier to access to those services for rural residents. That leaves parcel delivery, but I think it'll be a tough argument that Canada needs to subsidize Amazon deliveries.
I’m not impressed with Canada Post strike. What so wrong with sending old school Christmas Cards? Pseudo tech geeks continually act and talk like they know better and are smarter. I know my mom enjoyed receiving a card,call or visit. What’s so wrong with actually staying in contact with family and friends with something so personal? When was the last time any of you detractors have received a handwritten thank you card? So many ‘folks’ sneer at us rural dwellers by your comments,most don’t know what you are talking about. Mail is a back up system for us,we don’t have 100% internet service,one bar on our cell phone. I still carry cash,emergency tow money. Now someone is gonna say move…
I agree with what you wrote.
"Scotiabank estimated that the writing and processing of a cheque cost anywhere between $9 and $25."
So, pray tell, if cheques are abandoned as you forecast, will the banks - make this singular, will the BNS - reduce service charges by the amount saved?
I didn't think so.
Does anyone remember the big fight about keeping door to door service every day from ~10 years ago. Maybe we should revisit that….
Yes! I was thinking the same. Not even as long ago as that, I remember a cost-cutting suggestion from Canada Post to begin having deliveries made to community postal boxes. I remember the uproar was overwhelming! How will our elderly manage? What about the handicapped? All good points, but there are solutions. God forbid anyone get inconvenienced these days.
The latest in a number of stories illustrating just how disastrous this strike will be for the postal union. More and more people and businesses will just give up on the post office, forcing it to dump its ridiculous business model of home delivery anywhere. What could the union possibly have thought would be the outcome of this walkout, coming at the Christmas season? That they really had a real gun to point at the head of the management that heads this rapidly sinking business? Or that the government would order them back? Sounds like the same old union story; we supply the labour, you management types figure out how to run the business, all the while making ridiculous demands of a company that bled $315 million just in the third quarter.
I believe that Canada absolutely needs a national postal service-- we're a large country with a small population and having reliable and (at least somewhat) affordable letter mail and parcel delivery to all corners of the country is an essential part of trying to make remote communities livable. The private sector isn't going to be able to deliver this service in a profitable manner, and I'm perfectly content with the idea that Canada Post will need to run on a subsidized model.
However, the idea that the union is going to handcuff management into not being able to cut jobs or introduce new technologies is ludicrous. The continuation of daily mail delivery, continuing to deliver flyer mail, and failing to transition to 100% community mailboxes (along with failing to make community mailboxes that can accommodate most of your average sized parcels) means that we've got an outdated organization providing a whole bunch of unnecessary service while failing to deliver on the essentials. Hopefully this strike will be a kick in the pants for the next Federal government to enact some serious postal reform.
When it comes to cheques in the mail, the one group who will struggle without that option will be that group of seniors who isn't comfortable with computers, particularly in rural areas not served by banks (which is to say more and more of them), who have heretofore thrown a cheque in the mail to pay a bill. It will require some time for this group to adapt to whatever the options are.
Best outcome, high-up union bosses will lose their six figure life styles
More people are finding out they don't need Canada post for much. Could anyone not live with a once weekly service? All I get by mail is my town tax bill and municipal water bill (it has figured out how to send bills online) and some flyers. I'm sure there are small businesses and charities that are affected, but a little ingenuity could solve those issues. This strike may also put a nail into the parcel delivery coffin for CP.
The main effect of the strike has been that I don't have a pile of flyers to throw out several times a week (never Fridays, for some reason, and often not when it's kind of rainy or hot...) There's one order I placed with an online company that they insisted on shipping with Canada Post despite the start of the strike, but that's been the only real negative consequence. More annoying than anything else...
i already get my mail once a week, also the box is still 7 miles(10+Kms) from my house
I have tons of shipments delayed because of the strike. Even items not arriving by Canada Post are delayed because the courier companies are overwhelmed. Electronic birthday and Christmas greetings aren't quite the same as a physical card.
Why is residential mail still door to door when less than 25% of residences receive that luxury? Move everyone to community boxes and ignore the “old people won’t be able to access their mail” complaints as most are doing it now. Why is mail delivery still 5 days per week? I get extremely few mailings that I would consider so urgent that I need mail 5 days per week. I suggest the PO work 6 days per week and reduce residential mail delivery down to 2 days per week. That way only 1/3 of mail routes would be served each day leading to smaller staff requirements and less expense for the PO. If someone still truly believes they need daily mail then let them rent a box at a local postal outlet.
Perhaps the Gov't should just create a Crown Corp called The Rural Mail Delivery Company. Close down Canada Post as it is now entirely. The days of door to door daily mail delivery are over, and not needed in most of the country. Move on ... if small parcel delivery in urban areas is feasible the a private company will jump and the opportunity to deliver.
Brilliant analysis! Canada Post had an opportunity to build on its trusted reputation by exploring new business opportunities and it blew it. And that's largely because CUPW seems to ignore the realities and benefits of technological advancements.