The slow descent of Canada Post into oblivion

Submitted by David on Thu, 2011-06-09 00:52

One of the interesting results of the current strikes in Canada Post are that it seems to be flipping to a MWF delivery system. In theory it's to address the strike, but personally I think that this sounds like a great approach to stick with to reduce costs.

Along with fewer staff in plants, mail in urban areas will be delivered only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Delivery in rural areas, parcels and pickup services will not be affected. Post offices will remain open as usual. Social security cheques won't be affected by delivery cutbacks.

These days typically I seem to be using Canada Post to receive various parcels. I suspect that that volume would be cut significantly if I move to ebooks - where's my touch-screen Kindle DX with WiFi Amazon? Anything essential seems to route through courier services. (Canada Post is also an extraordinarily cost-ineffective carrier when it comes to parcel service - more and more I see people using services like Fedex Ground or UPS Standard instead for lower-priority items and these alternatives are still significantly more expensive than USPS media mail which Canada Post has no reasonable equivalent to - their pseudo-courier services are more or less priced at the same level as their parcels for book-sized items). Instead, Canada Post is more of a junk-mail delivery service.

How much do Canadians care about this strike? Not a whole lot I think, and I suspect that they're care less the longer this goes on. Canada Post's spokesman mentioned that mail volume had dropped 50% this week, and also stated that "Every day they do this is a day that they're pushing our customers away." Indeed. I agree.

(Quotes from Postal strike to spread across Canada / Calgary Herald)

Comments

Anonymous (not verified)

Tue, 2011-06-14 03:28

The unionists surely don't know when to pick their time to strike. In this economic climate the general public cares even less re. the hourly rate a CP staffer receives. And why should they? Ppl. just want their damn mail since most of it is paid for already with tax dollars.
Granted, the standard mail serv. CP offers is lethargic at best, but there is still a reasonable chance of getting the mail - eventually. With a strike, prolonged or not, CP becomes less relevant as a postal delivery service and folks will smartly consider alternatives.
Serious consideration should be made to rehaul the current postal service into a private system or, at a minimum, dissolve the union and bring in folks who'll uphold their civic duty to do the job. Privatization needn't be more expensive than what we have now if public tenders are bid upon.