Postal strike

[Mrs.Anteater]

I am surprised we don't have a thread on this yet? Or did I miss it?
I spoke to a family member this week who said when she was a student ( and she is now retired), she had a summer job to sort mail and she made more money per hour than she made as a nurse.

I am not sure how much understanding there is in the population for the strike. My feeling is that the unions need to be very careful what they are asking for, because the monopoly of the postal service is gone and the need for it is on a decline. When I was in Germany, I was surprised that there was actually competition in postal services- there was another company driving out mail by bike, which was not the official postal service. German post has also expanded into banking for a long time.
Should people be legislated back to work? Is mail service as important as hospital staff?
My feeling is that the strike just strengthen the competition and the system might be breaking if it goes on.

 

[Luce NDs]

I am surprised we don't have a thread on this yet? Or did I miss it?
I spoke to a family member this week who said when she was a student ( and she is now retired), she had a summer job to sort mail and she made more money per hour than she made as a nurse.

I am not sure how much understanding there is in the population for the strike. My feeling is that the unions need to be very careful what they are asking for, because the monopoly of the postal service is gone and the need for it is on a decline. When I was in Germany, I was surprised that there was actually competition in postal services- there was another company driving out mail by bike, which was not the official postal service. German post has also expanded into banking for a long time.
Should people be legislated back to work? Is mail service as important as hospital staff?
My feeling is that the strike just strengthen the competition and the system might be breaking if it goes on.

In the Tom Dooley model are humans careful with duality?

 

[Mendalla]

I am surprised we don't have a thread on this yet? Or did I miss it?

I started one in Social but it's more about how we use the post today and the impact of the strike, rather than the politics.

because the monopoly of the postal service is gone and the need for it is on a decline

Except their monopoly isn't gone. In Canada, only Canada Post is allowed to do door-to-door (or box-to-box as the case may be) of first class letter mail and parcels. The other companies are restricted to special delivery type cases (24 hour courier services and such).

I was surprised that there was actually competition in postal services- there was another company driving out mail by bike, which was not the official postal service.

Which is what I am advocating for. Any company willing to take on the work should be able to do it. If Fedex or UPS or whoever wants to offer letter mail or door-to-door non-special delivery parcel services at a price competitive with CP, let them. I left off Purolator since they are actually owned by CP so are a bit of a special case.

German post has also expanded into banking for a long time.

Canada Post has mused about this but, so far, it's been fairly limited. I think there are regulatory issues that haven't been cleared away, yet.