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Canada Post workers on nationwide strike after government demands reforms (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 1 week ago by ValueSubtracted@startrek.website to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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[-] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 22 points 6 days ago

"The bottom line is this: Canada Post is effectively insolvent," Lightbound said earlier Thursday.

"It provides an essential service to Canadians, and in particular to rural, remote and Indigenous communities, and Canadians are rightfully attached to it and want it saved. However, repeated bailouts from the federal government are not the solution."

FFS it's a service not a business; profit is not the goal. Paying bills for services isn't 'bailing out' your service provider, it's paying for what you've used.

Mail transit is essential for a modern civilization, and it's not something that should be privately controlled. Having private options is fine, but there should ALWAYS be a federal mail service.

[-] pedz@lemmy.ca 14 points 6 days ago

Seeing how we also do this with public transit, hospitals, libraries and other public services, this point of view is disappointing and unfortunately very prevalent. The only thing where we can dump billions without ever asking if it's profitable, is roads. We can expropriate and build a 4 lane highway extension in the middle of a corn field for a little half a billion, multiple times, but funding hospitals, schools, public transit, clean water, the mail... ugh, such money pits!

[-] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

It’s a service that’s mainly used by businesses to communicate with their customers. Why should taxpayers subsidize it? Charge more for postage to businesses and make them pay for it.

Regular people rarely send mail to other regular people. Extremely rarely.

[-] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Looking at the loss numbers cited since 2018 come down to $20-30 per Canadian per year tops. This whole hullabaloo, erosion of confidence, economic disruption and more are over that. Mail and parcel delivery is basic economic infrastructure today. Having a public, reliable delivery service that covers all of Canada, that's run below cost, is an economic enabler for Canadian businesses, like water, electricity and roads. I can't believe we're doing what we're doing right now, especially for a government that talks about boosting Canada's economy. Ridiculous.

E: I'm beginning to believe that this isn't about incompetence mismanagement but perhaps willful mismanagement on the part of CP's exec layer who perhaps see higher compensation on the horizon, should CP be privatized. Of course at the expense of everyone else, workers, businesses and individual Canadians.

[-] BCBoy911@lemmy.ca 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Support to these workers striking - Mark Carney promised he wouldn't do austerity like Pollievre and hes blatantly breaking that promise with funding cuts for Canada Post. If there's a crisis at Canada Post its because they need to be funded, not have working hours cut in the name of austerity.

[-] Formfiller@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

It’s crazy how governments across the world are failing their citizens but seem to have unlimited money for corruption

[-] aarch0x40@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

What changed for 2018 to turn gains to losses?

[-] Whitebrow@lemmy.world 67 points 1 week ago

Good. Eliminating all door to door deliveries is not the answer and whoever came up with that rationale needs to removed immediately.

And again, for the people in the back: Canada post is a service. It doesn’t make money. It costs money. Same way public healthcare does.

Why are they trying to spin it as a business that needs to generate profit or undertake cost cutting measures to exist and continue providing services that are still being widely used?

[-] LeFantome@programming.dev 6 points 6 days ago

You don’t have to spin it as a business to say that evolving it to reflect reality makes sense. It is not exactly radical to say everybody should get the same level of service that the majority of us get today.

Fewer than 25% of Canadians have door to door delivery. Almost everybody gets delivery to a private mailbox very close to their house. Door to door delivery is down to under 4 million addresses. This is a 10 year plan to finish that transition. Not exactly aggressive.

You can still get delivery to your door if you are disabled.

Regardless of if it is a a business or an essential service, we should be honest about it. We used to send 5 times as much mail when we were fewer people. Why do we have to ignore that?

If 75% of us (like me) are totally fine with super mailboxes, I think the rest can handle it. I know that I could get away with delivery 3 times a week as well. In 2030, how time sensitive is something coming through regular mail. Let’s be real. I could wait one more day.

[-] Whitebrow@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

I agree with your notion of “evolving it” to fit the needs and requirements of today however I don’t agree with your other points.

Their plan is to remove door to door entirely, not just limit it to 3 days (which, I wouldn't have any major qualms about at this time if that was the endgame, which it isn’t)

However I shouldn’t need to be disabled to receive this basic level of service, nor do I want to hobble over to the mailbox or postal office that’s “very close to my house” because the current one is a 15 minute walk on a good day, and a 35 minute trudge through half snow covered roads on a bad one. And if we’re going with this, hypothetically, how would I even know I have any mail? Do I get a call? Do I get a notice at my door? Do I just have to show up every so often and check?

If it’s option 1, I can assure you that my phone’s functions are set by default to filter and drop any unknown calls. So that’s far from an optimal approach.

If it’s option 3, I will not be randomly dropping by the postal office or box because currently nowhere near (or on) any common route that I take, and I have no reason to do a random cold check especially if I work primarily from home

And if it’s option 2, you’re already here to deliver my notice, might as well bring my mail instead.

Besides the above outlined items, I’m not going to touch the time sensitive items argument because Canada post handles more than just mail, they also handle biological deliveries, medicine, restricted substances, stuff like live bees, all your legal documents, subpoenas, medical, etc. plus a bunch of other services that I’m probably forgetting.

[-] xthexder@l.sw0.com 2 points 6 days ago

Community mailboxes are almost always a block away or less. Everywhere I've lived in the last 10 years I've just had to cross the street to check the mail. There's no 15 minute walk...

If you're used to having your mail right at your door, then having to go check it is a little extra hassle, but really not terrible. I check mine like once or twice a week.

Maybe Canada Post could implement something like USPS has: They'll send you an email summary of pictures of the mail arriving each day.

[-] ThatOrangeBird@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago

What if you live in a very rural place? I shouldn't have to drive to retrieve my mail which would surely happen as there aren't enough houses nearby to warrant it being a community box location. I'd likely make sure I receive nothing via Canada Post anymore as much as possible, and they can fill some community box with junk mail until there's no more room.

[-] xthexder@l.sw0.com 1 points 6 days ago

My grandparents live on a farm in rural Canada and have never gotten delivery to their door. They have a PO box at the nearest town which is a 30 minute drive away. They can't even get anything shipped by a courier because non will deliver to a PO box or outside of town. As far as I know it's always worked this way, and nothing is changing there.

[-] Whitebrow@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Never heard of the USPS approach but it does seem interesting as a solution, thanks for sharing

[-] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 days ago

Because lots of rich people froth at the mount trying to get in on the privatization of a public service.

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[-] Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 30 points 1 week ago

Want to know how to get Canada Post back on its feet, financially? Ban private delivery services.

[-] ieGod@lemmy.zip 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

They don't need to turn a profit but the costs need to be financially sustainable. I don't think banning competition is a good move, that's unnecessary. The question should be posed to Canadians at large: what is CP's services worth to us, as a nation? Lemmy's views will certainly be skewed but we need an honest holistic view. Based on @GodofLies@lemmy.ca calculation in this thread I'm cool with the $50 a year 'fee', but that will certainly grow with their losses and they do need capital investment to improve/modernize aspects of the service.

[-] GodofLies@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago

Oh I am aware that they don't really need to turn a profit. Net zero / cost recovery is more than good enough. And I am in no way implying using government legislation to regulate that market. We need Canada Post to change their business model where they can still retain their currently hired employees. Are they seriously not able to make significant changes to their existing model to be more competitive? It reeks of a non-innovative c-suite and board (and government officials) unwilling to take the hard road of actually working with the employees to make complex organizational changes. They are taking the easy way out via 'standard accounting/business practices' by slashing services and worker layoffs. That's the easy way out.

What does the hard way look like? How about sitting down with union employees down to the lowest worker level and actually find ways for cost savings and new business opportunities to patch the shortfall? I don't to believe that CP management truly has tried other than finger-pointing at external private businesses stealing their lunch from underneath them or government legislation that's unwilling to change (because the fed gov is really the one in control here - so again, I'm saying they're just taking the easy way out. You think an elected federal government employee is going to sit down and do the hard work to go around talking to a large number of union employees to find a way through all this? My bet is no - they'll take the easy way out.)

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago

Canada post's costs are less than 1% of the government budget.

If we're looking to save money there's better places to look.

[-] thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

...or at the very minimum crack down on the 'independent contractor' nonsense. Make Amazon pay for UI, vacation, healthcare, car insurance, for all its delivery drivers. Our politicians allow too many scams, and it hurts everyone.

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[-] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 24 points 1 week ago

Stand with the posties and send a message to this government that siding with corporations instead of labour won't end well.

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