I am upset about the post office. I want my mail. I want the letter carrier to deliver my mail to the door, as they have always done.
Canada Post’s workers walked off the job on Sept. 25. I don’t blame them. On that day the Government of Canada announced that they want the post office to cease door-to-door mail delivery, shut some post offices and lay off some workers. What did the government think would happen if they announced that kind of radical change to the post office?
Did anyone think to talk to the people who work for Canada Post?
Who is to blame for this mess? I blame the government of Canada.
The post office is a business, okay, but it is also a government service, and has been since before Confederation. The government has a simple equation: they deliver the mail, and they charge people postage to deliver it.
What went wrong? My explanations come from my friendly longtime letter carrier, Mike, and from my neighbour across the street, Henry, who has worked his whole live at a Mississauga sorting plant for Canada Post.
They say that over the last few contract talks, Canada Post has offered raises that do not match what workers make at UPS, Purolator, and FedEx, for example. So the workers go on strike. So rather than waiting for the employer and employees to come to a deal, the government legislates the employees back to work. Over several cycles of this belligerence on the part of the government-backed management, the workers’ pay has stagnated; they now make about $30 an hour, compared to $38 for their counterparts.
The government now says we can’t afford door-to-door delivery. Not true! Door-to-door mail is typical all over the developed world. Raise the postal rates for God`s sake!
The post office has to evolve. Absolutely. The union suggests the post office can become a rural bank, as is the case in France and elsewhere. What a great idea! The banks are leaving rural Canada, but every rural community has a post office; the post office can offer more services!
Postal workers can also become rural social workers. In some countries, the letter carrier on their route will ring the doorbell of seniors who live alone, and ask how they are doing. I think of my mom, who is now in her late 80s and lives alone along a river in west Quebec, on a couple of acres of land on a rural route, with no neighbours very nearby. Wouldn’t it be great if her letter carrier rang her bell every day and asked how she was doing? I bet she would give the letter carrier a cookie! (A risk of this strategy might be that the letter carriers put on weight).
The point is, everything is becoming virtual, including this frickin` blog post, which is coming to you on line rather than on paper. But there is still a vital role for the physical. So many things come through the mail: magazines and chatty letters and cheques and direct mail and Christmas and birthday cards and also stuff like books that you order. Packages are huge for Canada Post, and they were making money hand over fist from the explosion of online shopping, until the corporation, run by some guy named Doug Ettinger whose background is in the dairy and chocolate businesses, started monkeying around with Canada Post.
Prime Minister Mark Carney must immediately fire Ettinger and his cronies and find someone who can run Canada Post like the Crown corporation that it is. Yes, the post office can be relevant, bring me my mail, and make money too. It`s not rocket science. It`s mail.