Gone are the days when handwritten love notes and family letters were dropped into a mailbox daily.
As the Christmas season arrives, Canada’s national mail service usually braces for its busiest time of year. People gear up to send holiday gifts to friends and family, small businesses mail gift items and remote communities rely on the service for various shipping and receiving needs.
Things are different this year.
Almost a month into the Canada Post strike, seemingly strategically planned to coincide with the holiday season, things have not gone as planned for the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW).
Summer_Wind/Shutterstock
Likely banking on their employer agreeing to workplace requests, due to significant profit at stake in December, there is no solution in sight. Canada Post may soon be unable to meet employee requests, having lost weeks of profit during their busiest season.
An Angus Reid poll found that seven in 10 Canadians are affected by the strike, as the mail service and CUPW cannot reach a compromise.
Many seniors, often untrusting or unfamiliar with the internet, are now refraining from holiday season donations. At the same time, nonprofits cannot afford alternate delivery services to send information on holiday needs while providing incentives and easy donation options.
Remote and rural communities are missing vital deliveries and affordable ways to send. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) estimates that the postal strike has cost small and medium-sized businesses billions.
asife/Shutterstock
Many Canadians, already experiencing challenging times, are not in the mood for higher costs and will struggle with lower incomes if they move closer to the delivery business.
Trudeau’s federal government appears to lack empathy and is under fire for sitting idle while Canadians suffer the consequences of this Christmas season’s HR and PR nightmare.
Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code would allow intervention. Although the government implemented back-to-work legislation during a 2018 postal strike, the current New Democratic Party (NDP) minority government seems to be preventing it, muddying the reputations of all parties touching on this issue.
In my view, the CUPW suffers most from long-term reputation risks, not to mention job security. Your friendly mailperson now appears to lack empathy and wisdom to wait until post-holidays to work through the issues, many of which stem from the evolution of shipping. Various competitions, such as Amazon and the ongoing shift to digital solutions, have resulted in Canada Post losing $748 million in 2023 and delivering three billion fewer letters in 2023 compared to 2006.
It begs the question: will Canada Post still be around in a few years? How will its affordable and reliable services fare?
What a PR and goodwill win it would be for the CUPW to announce they will return to work until January 1 so Canadians don’t suffer the brunt of this dispute.
This would also allow their employer to recoup some of the vital December profits they rely on to employ and provide appealing benefit packages. This move would also give postal workers significant public favour while preventing further damage to the Canadian economy and everyday Canadians, including those paid by cheques.
This week, I paid over $60 to have two Christmas cards mailed to family in Ontario using the least expensive service that UPS is currently offering. We usually mail 30+ cards to family and friends, but that cost was unrealistic this year. We narrowed it down to the two we know are delighted by our card — aging or ill family.
Sometimes, it’s not about knowing which battles to fight but when to fight them.