Posted on 06/15/2011 2:44:04 AM PDT by Clive
OTTAWA - Canada Post says it was forced to shut down operations, locking out striking postal workers nationwide.
The lockout started making the rounds in Twitter posts late Tuesday night by members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.
"Canada Post has locked out all CUPW members nationwide," CUPW Vancouver tweeted.
Canada Post confirmed it "has suspended operations across the country" Tuesday evening.
"The accelerating decline in volumes and revenue combined with the inability to deliver mail on a timely and safe basis has left the company with no choice but to make this decision," a release said.
Canada Post said its estimated losses "are approaching $100 million" after strikes in Toronto and Montreal.
"Canada Post and CUPW remain far apart on several fundamental issues and there has been no progress made at the negotiating table for weeks," the release said. "If we allow the uncertainty created by the rotating strikes to continue, our ability to remain financially self-sufficient and not become a burden on Canadian taxpayers will be in jeopardy."
Canada Post said a lockout "is the best way to bring a timely resolution to this impasse and force the union to seriously consider proposals that address the declining mail volumes and the $3.2-billion pension deficit."
Earlier in the day, Canada Post had warned the rolling strikes could lead to a lockout.
"We're going to try moving the mail as best we can, but there are going to some serious bottlenecks," said Canada Post spokeswoman Anick Losier.
The Crown Corporation had already cut overtime hours and decreased mail delivery to three days per week in what CUPW called a "partial lockout." The union wants federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt to ask Canada Post to restore full service. So far, Raitt has shown no willingness to intervene.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnews.canoe.ca ...
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Canada Post Forced to Shut Down Urban Operations Nationwide2011/6/14
Union actions compromise the viability of Canada Post
Following 12 days of increasingly costly and damaging rotating strikes being carried out by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), Canada Post has suspended operations across the country. The accelerating decline in volumes and revenue combined with the inability to deliver mail on a timely and safe basis has left the company with no choice but to make this decision.
Specifically we have taken this action for the following reasons:
We believe that a lockout is the best way to bring a timely resolution to this impasse and force the union to seriously consider proposals that address the declining mail volumes and the $3.2-billion pension deficit.
- Rotating strikes have had a significant impact on the short-term revenue of the business. Canada Post’s estimated losses are approaching $100 million after today’s strike in Montreal and Toronto and that figure is climbing daily;
- Over the past few days several incidents have raised concerns about the ability to move the mail while keeping our employees and customers safe;
- Canada Post and CUPW remain far apart on several fundamental issues and there has been no progress made at the negotiating table for weeks;
- If we allow the uncertainty created by the rotating strikes to continue, our ability to remain financially self-sufficient and not become a burden on Canadian taxpayers will be in jeopardy.
Canada Post continues to believe that the best result from this round of bargaining is a negotiated settlement. The company had hoped to reach an agreement without a disruption in Canada’s postal service which is why the company made every effort to protect the pay, pension and job security of existing employees.
For more information:
Media Relations
613 734-8888
medias@canadapost.ca
This caused a significant drop in mail volume posted by Canada Post customers.
The company responded by announcing reduction in urban mail delivery to three days per week. The union responded by upping the stoppages from one or two locations to ten.
The tipping point appears to be yesterday when the union struck Toronto’s South Central Mail Processing Plant, Mississauga’s Gateway Plant and Montreal’s Léo-Blanchette Plant.
These are huge regional sorting stations serving the Montreal and Toronto metropolitan areas and municipalities surrounding them.
Good. Strikes are stupid and should be illegal. I hope all the striking workers get replaced. I’m a mail carrier. If this crap happened here, I’d cross the lines to work. I don’t give a crap about the union.
There’s elastic demand, chocolate, and inelastic demand, getting your broken femur set. Every economic action provokes a reaction. The ’73 oil crisis caused a decades long step function increase in efficiency that ultimately hurt the Arab boycotters. The television writer’s strike gave us reality TV. Oil is an inelastic demand, but the users minimized their exposure to decreases in supply by becoming more efficient; using less. The Writer’s Guild (union) kept the big bucks for their elite few, but threw away the future by doing so. All over Canada the remaining elderly users of the postal system are buying iPhones to keep up with the grandkids. They’ll only be using the mail to send Christmas cards. Eventually nobody will even do that and the mail will move only class three advertising. Certainly nobody with anything important to move will ever trust the mail again.
My advice; declare mail obsolete and get rid of the entire operation.
Mail solicitation and catalog publishing companies must be two of the few industries that are still making money - based on what shows up in my mailbox these days.
I sent a package to Canada last week. I suppose this means it will never get there.
"I sent a package to Canada last week. I suppose this means it will never get there."When did you send it and was it to an urban destination or a rural one? Canada Post was operating last week except those locations that were hit by the 1 or 2 day rolling strikes.
Canada Post had announced that it would cut back urban door-to-door deliveries to Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays effective Monday 2011-06-13.
Rural deliveries and suburban "superbox" deliveries were not to have been cut back as they were handled by CUPW worrkers.
The lockout is supposedly only for urban services. However, the mail to rural areas still have to go through the big regional sorting plants.
So there is a slight possibility that your parcel had made it through the sorting plants before they were hit by a rolling strike or the shutdown that was just announced,
I sent it June 7 and it was going to a place called Etobicoke, ON. Is that rural?
maybe the NFL locked out players can deliver the mail to the ‘Great White North’..
...and those postal worker ‘hosers’....can ‘Go Long’ down here...
Fire them all!!Posts their jobs for 10 - 12 bucks an hour
Nope...Urban Toronto westend.....
This line:
Rural deliveries and suburban "superbox" deliveries were not to have been cut back as they were handled by CUPW worrkers.
Should have read thus:
Rural deliveries and suburban "superbox" deliveries were not to have been cut back as they were not handled by CUPW workers.
Great.
"I sent it June 7 and it was going to a place called Etobicoke, ON. Is that rural?"It is urban. It is formerly part of Metropolitan Toronto but now part of the City of Toronto.
Your mail would have gone through one of the large regional sorting stations that were operating until they were struck yesterday and which are now locked out.
I am in Toronto and have been getting my mail every weekday up to and including Monday. I did notice a slowdown since the talks broke down. A bill which ought to have gotten to me within a day or two did not get to me even though the credit card company tells me that it was sent on the same day as you mailed your package. Probably the sorting plant employees were slowing down the sort process,
Call the person to whom you sent the package to see if he got it. In the ordinary course of events I would have expected that he would have received it by Monday unless there was a Canada Customs issue.
“I sent a package to Canada last week. I suppose this means it will never get there.”
Same problem. I had an insured package mailed to me yesterday from Canada to the States.
I’m assuming it’s now locked inside some building, and going to remain there for some time...
“declare mail obsolete and get rid of the entire operation.”
Nah, just privatize it!
Air Traffic Controller time: Renaldus Magnus style
Enuf is enuf
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