this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024

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Workers at Canada Post Are On Strike. Here’s What Postal Workers Are Fighting For. (pressprogress.ca)

submitted 15 hours ago by NightOwl@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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[–] AlternateRoute@lemmy.ca 21 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Since so many of these leave the details out.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1542q49wzgo

The union wants a 24% pay increase over the next four years - higher than the 11.5% increase proposed by employer Canada Post.

and

The latest strike comes as the Crown corporation deals with big financial losses of C$3bn since 2016, primarily due to the fact that people are sending fewer letters than before.

In its 2023 annual report, the operator said its financial situation is “unsustainable", and had projected that it will run out of cash unless it borrows C$1bn and refinances its existing debt.

[–] healthetank@lemmy.ca 24 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Side note, but I always hate how it's described as "losses". No shit providing mail delivery is a service. It's nice to aim to reduce the cost as much as possible, but when you're looking at something like Canada where there are countless remote and difficult to reach communities, regular communication and parcel delivery is going to cost money

[–] Chip_Rat@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Now now! What would Capitalism say if it heard you?!

[–] Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

"Ah just let private industry compete. When you have literally hundreds of options, the cream will rise to the top.

Competition is the way of capitalism, so don't turn your back on it or you'll have unaffordable scarcity.

The best thing — oh, hang on, it's the cabal of private corporations. A merger, you say? Glory to the consolidation of wealth! Yeah, of course you can price fix with the rest of the triopoly. It's called 'market price.'

As I was saying, the best thing to do would be to layoff the entire staff, sell everything for pennies on the dollar, and leave everything in the trustworthy hands of private enterprise. They're just better at it."

[–] Chip_Rat@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

Can I get an A MEN!!!!!!

[+] ShadowRam@fedia.io -9 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

I really don't understand why they are still delivering mail 'EVERYDAY'

Any snail mail could easily be delivered once a week.

Anything real important that needs to be delivered faster can be (and is already) delivered by courier.

They also need to up their package game.

Take a page out of Amazon and up your logistics game already.

Relying on adverts/junk mail has never been the answer.

[–] moonbunny@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

They’ve already been considering ending daily mail delivery, but they require a legislative amendment by the federal government to allow them to make any of the changes needed to keep their operations afloat. Here’s an article from earlier this year

I doubt it’ll be allowed anytime soon with an election on the horizon, but any sitting government that introduces the changes will be receiving a lot of backlash from opposition and rural residents.

The previous government allowed for community mailboxes to be setup to replace door-to-door delivery to make deliveries more efficient, and that got repealed because the poor elderly folks and people in the middle of nowhere would have to get some exercise to collect their mail. We all know what happened after the liberals got voted in, so I doubt much will change besides Canada post requiring subsidies in order to be able to operate by the very legislation that’s making them lose money.

[–] ShadowRam@fedia.io 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Yup, all very valid points.

But I think dropping the daily mail to weekly would be much easier pill to swallow, then forcing people to walk down the street to a box in the rain/snow.

Just think thou, with the subsidies, maybe a bi-weekly visit...

Canada Post could have set themselves up as the defacto last mile delivery service.. they could have been towing along all those amazon deliveries while they were at people's houses dropping off mail anyway.

So much efficiency to be had in the system, and they just ignored the writing on the wall for the past 15 years.

[–] Chip_Rat@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

What percentage of Canadians have to walk to a box down the street right now?

I'm curious, because during these discussions there is all this talk about how having to do that will bring down the whole system, will unfairly affect the elderly or disabled. Yet as someone who grew up in a semi-rural setting, 80% of the people I went to school with had to walk (or stop on the drive home) at a green box for their mail. It's a very city centric idea that mail has to come right to your door. And in cities, your communal boxes could be fairly close to your house anyways.....

I am not and don't usually propose cutting services.

I am not suggesting this as a good option now.

But it confuses the hell out of me that people think this would be the end of civilized society.

And I would like to fantasize on a future where Canada Post took over all Amazon deliveries. Forcing Amazon (and the consumer) to pay fair wages to unionized post officers and not abuse temporary "independent contractors". Huge increase in unionized secure jobs...

I like that.

[–] Yoddel_Hickory@lemmy.ca 31 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

"A page out of Amazon" being underpaid workers in terrible working conditions I assume?

[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 4 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

That is indeed the direction the management has proposed if CUPW is to be believed (I don't doubt it a second).

[–] ShadowRam@fedia.io -3 points 14 hours ago

No. The logistics side of things. Mail Carriers are already being underpaid.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

delivering mail ‘EVERYDAY’

You mean 'every day', right?

[–] ShadowRam@fedia.io 1 points 4 hours ago

How bout you goto the grocery store.

[–] fourish@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

And in the US you can also put outgoing mail in your box and they’ll take it. Super convenient. Why can’t they do that here too since they’re already there?

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 4 points 9 hours ago

They did in rural areas 20 years ago. I grew up on a rural road and it was totally a thing to send mail by putting it in the mailbox and raise the flag.

Maybe it's just a rural thing for people with individual mailboxes, or maybe they stopped doing this, but it was possible a few decades ago.