# Canada Post's Three-Day/Week Delivery



## Karen (Jul 24, 2010)

I'm puzzled by Canada Post's Announcement that they are changing to a system of delivering mail only three days a week - Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. In spite of watching both the newspapers and the CTV news closely, I cannot find an answer to my main question: Is this going to be a permanent change or is just for the duration of the labour troubles? I'm wondering if CP is using the rotating strikes as an excuse to cut back service and then announce when the dispute has been settled that they're going to leave things that way. Has anyone seen an answer to that question?


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## travelgeek (Nov 29, 2009)

It's just for the duration of the dispute. Mail volumes have dropped more than 50%, so it absolutely makes sense what they're doing. Of course the union doesn't like it since their game of rotating strikes was to cost CPC business during their dispute while still earning a full paycheck.

Though for me they could switch permanently as all I get is junk in the mail, and any bills are retrieved online.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

IMO they can make this a permanent change and we will get along fine as most of us use Internet to pay bills etc.My mom is 72 and now uses the internet to pay her bills although she is not comfortable going paperless with her bank statements and credit cards.


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## Karen (Jul 24, 2010)

I'm with you, Marina - ten years ago I'd have had a fit about the post office workers going on strike; now I honestly don't think it will have much effect on my life. From a personal point of view, I really don't care one way or the other if Canada Post cuts the service to three days a week permanently, although I'm sure it would be very upsetting to a lot of businesses. 

Travelgeek says the cutback is just for the duration of the strike, but he didn't say how he knows that. I think most of us assumed that was the case, but I can't find anything that actually says that, even on Canada Post's website. Oh well, time will tell.


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## Mark Rose (Jun 14, 2011)

I'd be fine with once a week delivery. That would bulk up the deliveries per route five times. With the efficiencies involved, you could fire two thirds of the union whiners and save everyone a ton of money.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

I heard on the news that this was a permanent switch; initially the news stories said it was only for the duration of the strike, but I did hear on the radio the other day that it was permanent. But as everyone says, it seems impossible to verify one way or the other.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

but hasn't the practice of delivering mail only 2 or 3 times a week been going on de facto for years now. Flambuoyantly in US cities, less noisily here in canada. I bet the posties even have a slang verb for it.

sometimes we receive zero mail all week, then on friday the postie dumps a bunch of rubber banded bundles onto the front porch. Each bundle consists of a magazine or a document in a 9 x 12 envelope, folded with 4 or 5 first-class letters & bills stuck inside. The bundle is then secured with a thick blue rubber band.

ie no mail all week, then on friday 25 or 30 pieces tossed in bundles onto the porch. Fortunately, so far, since this is against the rules, it's possible to complain & get postal delivery somewhat normalized. But a few months later there's a new postie on the route & it all starts up again.

this doesn't really bother me since i no longer expect regular mail to be delivered on time. What i do mind is the postie expecting a great big fat cash tip at christmastime.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

I agree that mail delivery should be reduced to 3, or even 2, days a week.
All we would lose is the junk mail and the fliers.
And if that helps save costs at CP, all the better.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

HaroldCrump said:


> I agree that mail delivery should be reduced to 3, or even 2, days a week.
> All we would lose is the junk mail and the fliers.
> And if that helps save costs at CP, all the better.


It wouldn't reduce the junk mail. Those are big revenue drivers for CP.


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## Sampson (Apr 3, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> but hasn't the practice of delivering mail only 2 or 3 times a week been going on de facto for years now


This wouldn't surprise me, but now they would only get paid for the 3 days right?

Somehow I think this action might just bite them in the *** later, sort of like the actors guild strike a few years ago, now we have nothing but reality TV programming.

It is a bold move to do something that makes your customers realize that they don't need you anymore.


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## nathan79 (Feb 21, 2011)

I guess this is the beginning of the end for Canada Post. Shame, because the private options don't really compete. The union is so out of touch with reality it makes me sick. I want to know how I can get a job starting at $19 an hour with full benefits, sick leave, 7 weeks vacation time, for doing a menial job that requires no education. What world are these people living in.


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

This is part of an article written in the NP before the strike began, I thought it was so funny: 

*"Canada Post workers, who are planning to strike unless they get their way. Talk about fantasyland: the volume of letters is down 17% in 5 years but posties want a 3.3% hike in Year 1 and 2.75 per cent in Years 2-4. The post office is offering 1.9% for 3 years and 2% in the fourth. Note: posties get up to 7 weeks vacation a year. Seven weeks! Who gets seven weeks vacation in the world? (OK maybe in France, but it’s just so the tourists don’t have to put up with them). Otherwise the Post Office is proposing pay for new hires would be cut to $17.50 an hour from $24, and new would have to work all the way to age 60 to get a full pension (all together now: Awwwwwww, poor babies). They also want to cut the maximum vacation to six weeks. Take it and run, folks. Take it and run."*

I'm with the rest of you who think 3x a week mail delivery is enough.


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

In all fairness, the cost of living increases shouldn't be correlated with the overall volume of mail. However, the number of employees should change to match the decreasing volume of mail.

I think 3X a week is great. Once a week would be fine as well.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

What's killing Canada Post isn't the (relatively high) salaries or the employee benefits - it's the underfunded post-employment costs (aka "legacy costs").

The pension shortfall at the end of 2010 was more than 3B, giving that plan a solvency ratio of just over 80%. Good luck with that, Canada Post - even cutting salaries for current workers dramatically will not do a lot to find the surpluses they need to make good on their outstanding, underfunded promises.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

i guess everybody has their wacky canada post stories. 

in my book discussion group is a hearty, strapping woman with a loud voice & subtle, delicate insights into the most complicated of novels.

eventually we learned that she is a postal carrier. The conversation turned to activities such as posties bundling mail up with rubber bands & throwing the packages onto porches instead of delivering mail into mailboxes. Also some asked about posties tromping across lawns & flowerbeds between houses instead of taking the house path back out to the street sidewalk, going to the next address & then walking up its front path ...

THAT'S THE TROUBLE WITH MANAGEMENT THEY NEVER LISTEN TO US shouted our genial book member. OF COURSE WE CAN'T TAKE THE TIME TO WALK BACK OUT TO THE STREET. OF COUSE WE HAVE TO WALK THROUGH THE FLOWERBEDS.

jaws dropped. Pages rustled nervously.

FOR YEARS WE'VE BEEN TELLING MANAGEMENT HOW TO RUN THE PLACE BUT THEY WON'T LISTEN TO US, she roared.

IF THEY'D LISTENED TO US, CANADA POST WOULD BE HOME FREE NOW, NO PROBLEMS AT ALL.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

I have to admit I did a double-take when I saw that Canada Post had hired Deepak Chopra to be their new president and CEO -- maybe they wanted him to bring some kind of meditative healing to the posties and resolve the dispute, but then I realized it wasn't THAT Deepak Chopra...


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

OMG one of my poor friends has a longstanding dispute with Canada Post as they have essentially ruined her garden many times over by using it as a cut-across point (she's on a corner lot). She is actually in the process of replanting it with thorny bushes and some kind of unstable rock bed with large, irregular, pointy rocks specifically to deter the posties.

Another true story: I went to grad school with a postie. He worked full-time. His route took him between 3 and 4 hours a day. My landlord at the time was ALSO a postie. Not that I ever saw him working - he was there when I got up, and he was there if I came home for lunch, and he was there at the end of the school day, etc.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

A friend of mine was a postie in the US, in the Boston area, and believe me they worked him hard. He lost 45 pounds in his first three months and basically had to run in order to complete his route in the required time, carrying heavy sacks of mail. He told me it was by far the most emotionally stressful job he'd ever had; before that he'd worked as a prison guard and parole officer. Maybe they have it easier up here in Canada


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

No Brad, I am sure my anecdata about TWO posties is an accurate generalization for ALL POSTAL WORKERS in Canada.


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## Karen (Jul 24, 2010)

My favourite post office story: A friend of mine receives a significant amount of dividend income every year around the end of December. A few years ago, when the money still hadn't arrived several days after the expected date, she phoned the post office and was told that the mail volume had been heavy because it was the Christmas season and that there had been too much mail for the postal carrier to finish his route for the past few days. My friend, who apparently lived near the end of the route, asked why, if the carrier hadn't had time to finish his route one day, did he not start the next day where he had left off the day before. The response was a shocked, "Oh no, he couldn't do that; of course he has to start his route at the beginning." So the people at the end of the route had to wait several days for their mail while the ones near the start got theirs every day.


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## nathan79 (Feb 21, 2011)

^ That happened to my parents as well. During busy periods, they would usually get a bundle of mail wrapped in an elastic band once a week. They lived a few blocks off the beaten path on the edge of the route area.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

MoneyGal said:


> She is actually in the process of replanting it with thorny bushes and some kind of unstable rock bed with large, irregular, pointy rocks specifically to deter the posties.


I'd caution against any 'booby trapping' of the property or anything that might be construed as such. From a tort law perspective, you can be liable for any injury to a person who is trespassing on your property.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

No booby trapping. She's just making it a space that you'd think twice about using as a casual shortcut. It's just a passive nudge.


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## Rico (Jan 27, 2011)

Karen said:


> My friend, who apparently lived near the end of the route, asked why, if the carrier hadn't had time to finish his route one day, did he not start the next day where he had left off the day before. The response was a shocked, "Oh no, he couldn't do that; of course he has to start his route at the beginning." So the people at the end of the route had to wait several days for their mail while the ones near the start got theirs every day.


That response is so dumb (as is the carrier for doing it that way). I knew a few carriers who used to do their routes backwards once in a while, whether for situations like above or just for a break in the routine.

Since mail is sorted by street addresses, you do kind of have to begin at the start of one end of the route or the other to walk the route properly. Starting half-way would be annoying; often one route leads to the next so the finish of one is the start of another one.

I worked in a sorting plant back in the day while I was in university. I saw that the carriers had to come in very early to sort so the 3-4 hour route doesn't include that time; so a 5 a.m. start means a 2 p.m. finish. Much of the mail came in pre-sorted by machines (which were wrapped in elastics). Most of them worked lots of overtime, except in the summer when it was slower. Christmas time is just insane; icy sidewalks are a bi$%h.

Back when I worked there I learned that they are NOT supposed to walk anywhere but on your sidewalk; they are supposed to deliver whatever is there that day (no "stockpiling"). I've seen both and it really irritates me.

I think they should re-org and focus on parcels and priority mail delivery for the Ebay age. Regular mail could come twice a week (Tues/Thurs) for all I care. The CUPW union pushes employees pretty hard to fight for everything when it comes to labour disputes and CP mgmt can be real asses.


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## travelgeek (Nov 29, 2009)

> *Canada Post Forced to Shut Down Urban Operations Nationwide*
> 
> 2011/6/14
> 
> ...


http://clients.infopost.ca/en/2011/06/canada-post-forced-to-shut-down-urban-operations-nationwide/


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## DanFo (Apr 9, 2011)

They'll be legislated back to work soon enough and settle in arbitration...one more strike by them and the gov probably will smarten up and just sell the assets to the competitors and then maybe they'll appreciate what they had.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

The Labor Minister is now mulling legislation to end the postal strike as well.
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1009100--ottawa-eyes-legislation-to-end-postal-strike?bn=1

This whole striking by AC & CP is getting silly now.
Esp. in light of what is happening across Europe with the public sector budget cuts.
Our guys here should be grateful for what they have and lie low for the next few years.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

> Hello,
> 
> As an epost user you’ve always been able to count on the epost service to receive, pay and manage your bills online.
> 
> ...


Thanks CP. Your lame attempt to keep up with technology was not really useful anyways. Most companies have learned to use email on their own!


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

http://www.cupw.ca/index.cfm/ci_id/1165/la_id/1.htm


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## Helianthus (Oct 19, 2010)

I wish they had of at least delivered the mail in the system. I have two Xpresspost shipments stuck in limbo.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

^According to the commenters on various websites, we have facebook and twitter so we don't need the royal mail (aka "canada post").


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

By the time Canada Post starts delivering again, we will have figured out how to live without them and they'll need to find new jobs

I've sold a house, paid final bills, take long distance courses and got insurance history dating back 10 years through a dozen companies - all during the strike. In some cases, people were like "Yea I guess we'll just email it then" No ****! It took a strike for you to realize this?!?

There is absolutely nothing in paper form that can't be done electronically. There are alternatives for packages. CP employees are cutting off their heads to spite their faces


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## jamesbe (May 8, 2010)

Agreed! I don't understand some people's insistence on needing a physically signed copy of something. My lawyer requires only an email as a legal signature.


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## Karen (Jul 24, 2010)

Years ago ( before the days of e-mail) I asked the lawyer for the company I worked for why a faxed signature was acceptable on a legal document, whereas a photocopied one wasn't. His answer was that it was because nobody had ever challenged a faxed signature in court. I assume the same thing would apply to e-mails.


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