Tag Archives: cupw

Canada Post Changes Reaction; Canada Post Cutbacks and Deceptions

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John Bail National Director -C.U.P.W. Pacific Region

Canada Post Cutbacks and Deceptions

By Lone Cloud Hopper

Canada Post is cutting back on service and on jobs and, as usual, they’re not being entirely honest about it. Although it’s true that many people are using emails today and therefore there is less profitability in surface mail, parcel delivery has exploded into an industry of its own. People are ordering things from Amazon, eBay and many websites today rather than going out to the mall. Many parcel delivery companies have popped up to compete with the mail service for a slice of the pie. Canada Post fought back by purchasing Purolator in an attempt to corner the market.

CUPW, the postal union, has made a number of suggestions to improve service and marketability, including the provision of banking services at Canada Post. This has worked very well for postal services in other countries, but Canada Post is too proud to take advice from a union which it has always fought to break apart and get rid of.

The goal here is simply to increase profit. They are claiming that sales are down for 2013, and that might be, if they calculate them before their busy season (Christmas!) Even by their own estimates, they made over 100 million dollars in profit last year. They’ve cried red before, anything to get the media and government on board to support their stripping back of union staff.

Deepak Chopra was placed as CEO of Canada Post by Stephen Harper, so when you hear Canada Post, or Lisa Raitt, claiming that these cutbacks are to “protect taxpayers,” you can guess where that idea comes from. Yes, keep firing taxpayers! That’ll really help us and our economy!

Canada Post not only wants to remove delivery jobs but inside sorting jobs as well, replacing well-paid postmasters with minimum-wage-paid employees at local chain stores. Gee, that sounds safe, doesn’t it? And how concerned can Canada Post be about money when they spend millions of dollars on a ridiculous reaching device which would not work for delivering small parcels to boxes and especially while in bad weather, and by purchasing right-hand-drive vehicles for employees? All this expense was done to deal with ergonomic problems, but the extent to which they’ve taken it, to design a hand-held contraption which has no application in reality, and then to redesign it, just makes their bottom line sound frivolous to them.

Now, elderly and handicapped people will have to travel further to get to their mail. People will have parcel cards in their community mailboxes and not even know it. The union had suggested increasing customer service, delivering more parcels to customers’ doors to provide superior service to their competitors. But Canada Post has its mind set: CUT UNION JOBS, CUT SERVICE. Cutting service and raising stamp prices is not great business sense, but then maybe Canada Post doesn’t feel too concerned about their competition after all.

LINKS/SOURCES:
Canada Post to phase out urban home mail delivery
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/…
Canada Post tests right-hand-drive cars
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-…
RSMC Vehicle Types
(Union page on vehicles changes issues)
http://www.cupw.ca/index.cfm/ci_id/14…
RSMC Reaching Device – Update 10/12
(An idealic demonstration of the device)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUgd9l…
2012 Annual Report
http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/about…
Canada Post profit evaporates in 2011
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canad…
Canada Post Reports Highest Profits in History (2011)
http://www.cupw.ca/index.cfm/ci_id/13…
Banking on a Future for Canada Post
(CUPW Proposes Money-Making Strategies for Canada Post)
http://www.cupw.ca/index.cfm/ci_id/14…

C.D. Howe Institute Ignores Needs of Canada Post Users

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http://www.cupw.ca    August 9, 2013

OTTAWA –The Canadian Union of Postal Workers is dismayed the C.D. Howe Institute’s e‑brief on postal reform offers only tired ideas for Canada Post that would result in service cutbacks.

Denis Lemelin, CUPW National President asks, “Why doesn’t it occur to this prominent private-sector-oriented think-tank that Canada Post should raise new revenue? Other postal administrations are bringing in expanded services, and staying viable by doing so. Why is the C.D. Howe Institute so short on innovation?”

Postal services globally are facing the same challenges. Postal operators in France, Italy, New Zealand and Brazil have responded by expanding into banking and financial services. PostFinance, Swiss Post’s postal banking and financial services arm, actually generated 71% of the company’s operating results in 2012.

The e-brief, “How Ottawa Can Deliver A Reformed Canada Post,” released August 8 by the C.D. Howe Institute, advocates an approach that likely leads to service cuts and government subsidization. It recommends contracting out, privatization, and tampering with the universal service obligation (USO) that ensures lettermail delivery to and from anywhere in the country for a single price.

“The C.D. Howe institute was making the same case for deregulation and privatization in 2007, while Canada Post was making profits” says Gayle Bossenberry, CUPW 1st National Vice‑President. “These are tired old ideas, not viable solutions for a valuable public service.

Furthermore, the public is clearly against this approach. Recent Strategic Communications poll results (May 2013) show that 71% of the general population opposes deregulating or privatizing postal services, even more so (88%) if it would mean the end of one-price-goes-anywhere service for the cost of a stamp. The C.D. Howe report does not value universal postal service, but the customers – the owners of Canada Post – clearly do.