Posted on 06/12/2011 8:10:20 PM PDT by george76
The rotating strike by Canada Post mail carriers and other workers will hit seven provinces starting late Sunday night, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers announced.
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On the issue of salaries, Callaghan said the parties are "fairly close" on wages for regular employees, but Canada Post is pushing for a significant cut in the hourly rate for new hires, to as low as $18 from about $23.
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The Crown corporation counters that measured on a per-address basis, mail volumes are down 17 per cent since 2006 and calls the union "out of touch" with the challenges facing the mail service.
"The uncertainty caused by seven months of negotiating and more than a week of union strike activity is hurting our customers, our employees and the business," Canada Post said in a written statement. "We cannot support any effort by the union to delay this process further or entertain costly and unrealistic demands that would cause rate increases for the customers."
Canada Post said last week that mail volumes have shot down by half since the rotating strikes began, and as a result it's cutting back delivery to Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
The CUPW has offered to suspend its strikes if Canada Post reinstates the workers' collective agreement, which lapsed in January. But the Crown corporation refuses to do so.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...
The money ($23) sounds good if you haven’t lived in Canada . . .
If the US Postal Service went on strike, would anyone notice?
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Drove by a bunch of picketers today...gave them a thumb’s down as I passed.
They are shooting themselves in the foot.
Since the USPS has a monopoly on first class mail, yes; and it’s illegal to strike (or we, and I’m a postal worker, would get fired.
(May 12): “Members of the U.S. Postal Service’s largest labor union have ratified a new four-year deal that gives them a 3.5 percent pay increase but requires that they pay a greater share of their health-care costs. More than 75 percent of the members of the American Postal Workers Union who voted in the election approved the deal, the union said Thursday morning. The final tally was 69,451 to 22,351 in balloting that ended Tuesday.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/postal-union-contract-ratified/2011/05/12/AFq6mT1G_story.html
Wikipedia: “Employing 596,000 workers and over 218,000 vehicles, the USPS is the second-largest civilian employer in the United States (after Wal-Mart)...The USPS is obligated to serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price and quality.”
USPS:
171 billion — total number of mail pieces processed in 2010
0 — tax dollars received for operating the Postal Service
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We do have a big deficit; maybe raising stamp prices slightly (second ounce did just go up) may help. 44 cents is pretty cheap, esp. when you consider price of gas. Thanks to 0bama etc it’s about 4 bucks a gallon...think of how much it costs to fuel up trucks, vans, jeeps, planes etc.
Other than one or two wildcat incidents I don’t think the
USPS has gone on strike since 1970. Would you notice if it
did? Other than major disruptions of business, no...
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