Post Office

I find myself being a full-time letter carrier in St. John's for several reasons, but will stress that what affected my desire for a transfer most (as a letter carrier and not an "inside" worker) was that I both began to despise the GTA and the possibility I could end up having to deliver out of many stations and various cities/areas within 40km of "Metro East."
 
The prospect of having to show up for work at some station on any given day and be sent to work somewhere I don't know - plus fighting traffic, potential parking issues and the commute to and from said station - fills me with dread!  That's not to mention some Scarborough "walk-through" apartment buildings I delivered to which I'd prefer to never have to enter again.

Come October of this year, that prospect may be the only choice I have.  Keeping a route of my own, when 30-40% of our routes will vanish with the full move to CMB's (community mailboxes), will be impossible. I've already heard - from a co-worker friend involved with our union - that Halifax now has 83 surplus carriers, and if all of them are part- or full-time, it's unclear to me exactly what they're being given to do on any given day or what is expected of them.  He said there's no such thing as overtime anymore in Halifax (not that I care much about that aspect), with that many people to pull from to cover a portion of anyone's "walk," who's away or over-burdened on their route.  (We call them walks....but walking will soon have nothing to do with my job!)  

Eventually I would get to know St. John's and other communities covered within my station, meaning also the various routes I'd have to cover over time.  I will miss seeing the people and their kids, cats and dogs and feeling more connected to both the community and especially to those I see regularly.  That aspect of the job will be nearly completely gone very soon.  But if, in the next contract, the 40km maximum distance an employee can be stationed/transferred to is removed, that could mean I might, at some point, be told if I want a job, I have to move to remote, Northern B.C. or Alberta or who knows where?

Just after moving out here, I was surprised to learn that strangers I met were so quick to feel my days as a letter carrier were numbered.  When I took the time to consider it, I figured the company and its mass media campaign had already been, for some time, hard at work about "changes" needed at the post office.  Canada Post reported a pretty handsome profit recently.  But..."Volumes are down," they say.  

But the company invested hugely in a massive processing plant (and its state-of-the-art letter-sorting  and parcel-conveying equipment) in Richmond, B.C. recently, made major investments and I assume costly contractual agreements and legalities to manufacture and install all the new CMB's.  That's not to mention that every letter carrier now uses a company vehicle to do their job, and you can imagine that is easily tens of thousands of brand new vehicles within the last 2 or 3 years.

Canada Post seems to represent to me, the problems of what is going on in general in the world, more and more each day:  the concentration of more and more money, into fewer and fewer and richer hands.  Employees used to get a profit-sharing bonus.  That's been removed for years now.  Management still receives theirs.  Our jobs used to be decent-paying.  New employees are signing-on with about $5/hr less.  Pensions have been detrimentally affected for employees, to save yet more money.

We've recently set records for distributing parcels for companies like Amazon and Best Buy.  I can't help but see the trade-off of incentives between these big companies and the Post, while the actual people doing the work are going to be "lucky" to keep their jobs.

There's far too much to say about all this, not to mention my nearly eight years' experience with several structural changes to my job and my own personal gripes and rewards during that time.  I'll close by simply stating that my focus, as things stand, is to enjoy my own route, and walking it, chatting people up and petting their dogs - while that lasts.

It seems crazy that they continue to cut employees out of the profits. Forcing them to work larger routes for less pay. It sounds like it is getting prepped for privatization. It seems to the be the way of our future. The fake economy continues to struggle and we the workers have to tighten our belts to keep it the economy afloat. Although it seems like there is the same amount to money going around it is just that more and more money is moving in the direction of the rich. It also seems inevitable that another economic crash will happen and more and more public services will be sold off to private interests to keep the fake economy afloat.

Without the postal service I wouldn't be where I am today.

I'm not just saying this because my job depends on getting and sending assignments, books and contracts by mail - but because without the postal service neither I nor my partner would not haven been born in the middle-class.

My grandfather (mother's side) was a postal-worker, my partner's father was a postal letter carrier. Without those descent-paying jobs neither her nor I would have been able to go to university.

In fact without public service jobs like postal work, teaching (grandmother), nursing (grandmother and mother) and unions in general (grandfather was a miner), I would probably be doing a life of manual labor or service industry wage-slavery right now.

The austerity attack on public service will destroy the middle-class - there is no way to avoid this. It's like watching North America put a gun to its' head.

This afternoon the union hosted a teleconference, which alllowed people to ask questions and make comments, but merely seemed to encourage everyone to vote - to "vote-out" the conservative party. I don't hold much faith in the voting process stopping upcoming changes at the Post or the austerity and its effects on the middle class.

Yeah - when all the major political parties agree that austerity is the only answer, it is just the degree of austerity they differ on, it is hard to hold out much hope.

I think there could be interesting study done of the changing public perception of the post office. When a country begins, the postal service is seen a grand unifying institution, a pillar of modern society. This positive image largely continues into the 1970s where postal workers are seen as public worker tying communities and countries together.

Then you have the 1980s....

Look at the largest sitcom of that era, Cheers.  The show's hero is the recovering alcoholic small business owner, Sam Malone, next in respect is alcoholic corporate account, Norm Peterson, followed by the foul-mouthed, working-class single mother, Carla, and then the upper-class university-educated Diane Chambers. The sole public servant is the postal worker Cliff Clavin who is the bar's scapegoat and only a few degree away from Norman Bates. The inefficiency of the postal institution is the butt of many Cheers jokes.

[It may seem weird to look at Cheers in terms of class, but watch those episodes where Sam Malone has to negotiate his business interests with that of social relationships - like when Norm wants to do the bar's taxes or when the waitresses want a raise - and you will find Malone's conservative capitalism shining painfully clear]

Then by the 1990s 'going postal' is a euphemism for a work-place mass shooting!

Something big happened between the 1970s and the 1990s...

In the 2000s the US postal service was seemingly being pushed off a (fiscal) cliff by the Republican Congress when they passed a bill forcing the USPS to “prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in an astonishing ten-year time span” — meaning that it had to put aside billions of dollars to pay for the health benefits of employees it hasn’t even hired yet, something “that no other government or private corporation is required to do.” SOURCE

This ludicrous bill managed to instantly put the US post office into massive debt AND fill it full of untouchable public funds that could be drained during privatization.

It is the slow-motion cannibalization of Canada and America into 'failed states'.

I've joked around about "going postal" many times over the years. I had forgotten Clavin was a postal worker.

I'll have to look it up again, but there's a great NFB animated film about a letter carrier dying on the job with some interesting twists in it.

I recommend reading Charles Bukowski's "Post Office," published in 1971. This is for a look into what he was saying about being a carrier in the late 60's. I've heard some crazy stories of what postal workers got away with in decades past.

Anyway...I'm getting off topic, and wanted to ask why you used the word "cannabalism" to describe the fate of Canada and the US?

I use 'cannibalism' to broadly mean that our economy is no longer driven by producing and selling but by exploiting and 'cannibalizing' preexisting pockets of wealth.

For example in 'Media Ethics' I realized that what happens in all the 'leveraged buyouts' of newspapers was that someone gets a massive loan, then buys up the newspaper, breaks the union, fires the workers, stops doing local coverage, runs more ads, runs more Hollywood news - and this 'cannibalism' creates the profit.

In 'Crime & Punishment' I realized that the whole of the justice system is built on finding faults in other humans and then fining them and asking for taxes to pay you to look for faults or to pay you to watch them while they are in cages. This is fine on a small scale but when policing and jail guards are largest employer in some states you have a problem - as this is nothing but people cannibalizing each other.

From 1940 - 1975 Canada used its national bank to create an industrial base of factories and public institutions, since the 1980s it has sold these assets off to private and foreign buyers - this is like body eating its own muscle when it starts to starve so this is auto-cannibalism. On a larger scale our economy has moved from 'industrial production' to 'finance', finance makes profits through interest, insurance, stock market gambling, rent-seeking and intellectual property - all of which are non-productive predatory measure that cannibalize those who actually live and work in a country.

Naomi Klien's 'Disaster Capitalism' puts forward the idea that the easiest sources of profit - like colonial exploitation and natural resource extraction - are starting to dry up, so capitalists are now hungrily eying the last pocket of easy money: the public wealth kept in governments. So instead of whipping non-whites to harvest silver and rubber, capitalists are hiring lobbyists to force government to hand-over public institutions. The result of this is that governments (and the societies they hold together) are being cannibalized by the corporations they should be over-seeing.

So 'cannibalism' is my metaphorical attempt to capture a variety of predatory economical practices that don't provide any real value or service but instead eat up the common wealth we have created.

As bleak as all that you just wrote sounds, I appreciate the insights into what you meant by "cannibalism."

Speaking partly from what I gather from the atmosphere at my work, and from my own thoughts on what is happening and about to happen at the post office...

There is no hope of stopping the switch-over from door-to-door delivery to community mailboxes. There is a feeling that although our union might mean well and actually be working toward the cause of stopping it, it's rather late to see it stopped when we've known for years this was coming and nothing was put in place to rally people and fight for the status quo now much - up to now. I can say I was happy to see one street on my route, in particular, with a dozen or so houses placing "Save Canada Post" signs on their front lawns. But I questioned if those signs had any effect on anyone seeing them, or any effect at all. I bought a $5 "Save Canada Post" toque. I couldn't wear the damn thing, it was so tight on my head. But I would rather have seen us all contribute $5 to something more constructive. Not to mention I already pay a good amount of dues a year to the union - enough they could have easily given out the stupid hats to us!

Our last contract saw the union push for accepting the revised collective agreement, while I knew few people, including myself, who had any desire to accept the new terms. The very fact that new hirees would be paid less, was enough for me to vote "no."

I'm guessing there's many people like myself, who, right or wrong, do not believe the union can or will do much to help us keep our jobs. It seems to me that the climate of people's indifference to what is going on around them, no matter how far away or how close it is to home, is growing. A hopelessness has set in (and not just about my job, I mean) and it will be interesting to see what happens early next year, when our collective agreement expires.

There's a part of me that would love to fight the good fight - be more of an activist, and another part that wouldn't care to hold a placard at a strike. Just get rid of my job and let's get this over with as fast and painlessly as we can, sort of idea!

I feel the same way about health care in a lot of ways. There is clearly a movement to start privatizing health care services and although there is a voice fighting that wave, it is a minority. I have a similar complaint about my union in that it seems more reactionary than preventative. I know when pieces of health care are being broken off the union will fight. We are seeing that now with the increasing use of private group homes and long term care facilities here in NL. The union fights the use of these private options but by then it is largely to late. The tentacles of privatization have been working thier way into health care for as ling as I have worked in it and they are only getting deeper. It is a sad state and hard to watch. For me personally even though the odds are massively against keeping health care public (or Canada Post) I want to and will continue to fight the forces of privatization by trying to bring awareness to it. I don't know what else to do?

I often think back to the speech in "Network" by Harold Beale. I will try and link to it later as I am on my phone right now. It is just as relevant now as it was in 1976.

Tomorrow's May Day so it's a good time for these sort of conversations! So today's dose of carpal tunnel is coming from posting here instead of revising material foisted on me by my brain-dead, contract-breaking management.

RE: Bleakness
I can't disagree that my political outlook is 'bleak' - but having spent the winter researching the post-contact history of Canadian First Nations, I know how much worse it can get. History tends to be a horror show for the individual.

RE:Holding Placards
The first protest I went to I made signs protesting the protest. Yup, I'm a detached ironic Gen-Xer. Holding a actual placard seemed too dorky, so uncool, so I arrived across the street and held up over-the-top pro-NAFTA signs. A reporter stood beside me taking pictures of the protest and then turned to me and sneered, "Are those signs serious or a joke? I don't get it."  

I looked at him and then the protestors a few times. I felt like Darth Vader looking back and forth between the Emperor and Luke. The choice was 'dorky protesters' or 'smug morons'. I walked across the street and was immediately handed one end of a banner to hold. It was a spring day and the air tasted so much freer on that side of the street. It sounds corny but its true.

Whenever I'm walking by a protest I offer to hold placards - and every time there is still a slight gap of fear I have to cross to do it - but the amount of smiles, hand shakes and free meals is always worth it.  

I have never been completely convinced about the media value of placards (or even protesting in general...) - but there are also other benefits to weigh. The class I took out in support of the USW miners was not a sociology class but a psychology one. I wanted them to know that individual psychological well-being could not be separated from social freedom. I made it optional and half the class joined in. To be able to look at another person not as a fellow consumer or as a competitor in the marketplaces of gender/class/race, but as a partner in resistance is liberating. When I think back to that march all I remember is smiles and I'm smiling as I type this. The USW union barely broke even in that strike (see my comments on History as Horrorshow....) but some victories were won.  


RE: Howard Beale's Speech
Network is one the best written films I know. It was written by Paddy Chayefsky who also wrote the screenplay for The Hospital (1971) - another film with great speeches.

I've done plenty of thinking about that film because it focuses on how social anger can be recuperatedback into the system and actually packed and sold by corporation as entertainment (the fact it also has a revolutionary called Hobbs also catches my attention).

When Schwarzenegger appeared on Jay Leno to announce he was running for Governor of California he quoted Beale's speech saying "We are mad as hell and we are not going to take it anymore."  Once elected on popular anger, Schwarzenegger unleashed his right-wing policies and no one could stop him - until he decided to made enemies of the California Nurses Association...

Lord knows, anger fueled much of my youthful activism, and perhaps because of this I have always being intrigued by Network's cautionary tale about how popular or even revolutionary anger can be channeled and used by the powers that be. Going through all of its great speeches in my head, I realize I could write a small essay on each of them.  Beale's first rant, where he hears a voice in his head telling him to speak the truth is hilarious: "For Pete's sake, I'm not asking you to walk the land in sackcloth and ashes preaching the Armageddon. You're on TV, man."

Well, now after all this talk of Beale and Chayefski, I will plan on watching Network again soon!

This Saturday, I will attend the following rally, and let you know how it goes:

CPAA & CUPW

THE CANADIAN POSTMASTERS & ASSISTANTS ASSOCIATION (CPAA) AND
THE CANADIAN UNION OF POSTAL WORKERS (CUPW)
DAY OF ACTION - PROTECT PUBLIC SERVICES AND JOBS. STOP THE CUTS. Rally to be held by CPAA and CUPW at the Canada Post building, 98 Kenmount Road, St. John’s, on Saturday May 2, 2015 at 2PM

Under the Harper government Canada Post has closed 229 post offices and installed 45 franchises. This past year in rural communities in Newfoundland Labrador, Canada Post reduced postal service by 25% or more in 169 rural post offices, closed the Saturday service in 101, reduced hours in 247 positions and eliminated 45 jobs. Louise Ade, President CPAA says, “Rural jobs support rural families and contribute to rural communities. With more and more services being taken out of our communities, a post office closure is just one more nail in the coffin of rural Canada.”

Home delivery is being attacked in the St. John’s/Mount Pearl metro area. The depot at 98 Kenmount Rd could see a reduction of 43 letter carrier positions which does not include the Relief staff, Casual workers or inside workers who will also be affected by these cuts. Mike McDonald president of the CUPW Local 126 says, “This will have a dramatic affect on the level of service the customer receives.”

All of these decisions were based on a Conference Board of Canada Report which was developed by Canada Post’s CEO and Conference board member Deepak Chopra who was hand picked by Stephen Harper to destroy the profitable public service.

March 27, 2015, Canada Post reported a massive profit from operations of $299 million for 2014. The Canada Post segment reported profit from operations of $204 million and a profit before tax of $194 million. This profit is around $555 million dollars better than CPC’s projected loss. And yet Canada Post continues to close post offices, move forward with eliminating door to door delivery, reduce positions and eliminate jobs in rural and urban Canada.
Rally to be held by CPAA and CUPW at the Canada Post building, 98 Kenmount Road, St. John’s, on Saturday May 2, 2015 at 2PM




CPAA & CUPW

THE CANADIAN POSTMASTERS & ASSISTANTS ASSOCIATION (CPAA) AND
THE CANADIAN UNION OF POSTAL WORKERS (CUPW)
DAY OF ACTION - PROTECT PUBLIC SERVICES AND JOBS. STOP THE CUTS. Rally to be held by CPAA and CUPW at the Canada Post building, 98 Kenmount Road, St. John’s, on Saturday May 2, 2015 at 2PM

Under the Harper government Canada Post has closed 229 post offices and installed 45 franchises. This past year in rural communities in Newfoundland Labrador, Canada Post reduced postal service by 25% or more in 169 rural post offices, closed the Saturday service in 101, reduced hours in 247 positions and eliminated 45 jobs. Louise Ade, President CPAA says, “Rural jobs support rural families and contribute to rural communities. With more and more services being taken out of our communities, a post office closure is just one more nail in the coffin of rural Canada.”

Home delivery is being attacked in the St. John’s/Mount Pearl metro area. The depot at 98 Kenmount Rd could see a reduction of 43 letter carrier positions which does not include the Relief staff, Casual workers or inside workers who will also be affected by these cuts. Mike McDonald president of the CUPW Local 126 says, “This will have a dramatic affect on the level of service the customer receives.”

All of these decisions were based on a Conference Board of Canada Report which was developed by Canada Post’s CEO and Conference board member Deepak Chopra who was hand picked by Stephen Harper to destroy the profitable public service.

March 27, 2015, Canada Post reported a massive profit from operations of $299 million for 2014. The Canada Post segment reported profit from operations of $204 million and a profit before tax of $194 million. This profit is around $555 million dollars better than CPC’s projected loss. And yet Canada Post continues to close post offices, move forward with eliminating door to door delivery, reduce positions and eliminate jobs in rural and urban Canada.
Rally to be held by CPAA and CUPW at the Canada Post building, 98 Kenmount Road, St. John’s, on Saturday May 2, 2015 at 2PM

I haven't taken the time to research this, but my CUPW friends tell me that the only time in recent history that Canada Post had a loss in revenue was year of / before the announcement of the changes to remove home delivery.

This financial loss was a direct result of Canada Post employee's being locked out by Canada Post executives and Harpers friends.

Sounds about right, Torgo...and sorry for being so long in replying! I've been told to be prepared for a strike by next summer.

Some Photo's from a friend at today's Rally in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

My favorite pic this year for this campaign.

Canada Post halts controversial community mailbox program

cbc.ca wrote:Canada Post is temporarily suspending the conversion of door-to-door delivery to community mailboxes.

In a news release issued late Monday, Canada Post spokeswoman Anick Losier said the corporation will work "collaboratively" with the government of Canada to determine the best path forward given the challenges in the postal system.

"Efforts are now underway to place the comprehensive program on hold in an orderly fashion," Losier said in the release. "This involves roughly 460,000 addresses across the country which are currently in the process to be converted to community mailboxes."

Canadian Union of Postal Workers national president Mike Palecek said members are "ecstatic" about the news.

"We've been fighting this campaign for a year and a half, and we're glad they finally put a halt to this disastrous program," he told CBC News. "It's time to talk about the future of Canada Post, about restoring service to those who have lost it, and about having a public mandate review of Canada Post so we can look at alternatives to these cuts."

Palecek said Canada Post should be looking at expanding services, such as having banking and financial services in post offices. He said it appears that the incoming Liberal government is following up on an election campaign promise.

The Liberals pledged an immediate moratorium on the cuts and to carry out a study.

Guess it's time to bring this thread back to life.

Let's start with this article: Where are the media warnings Canada Post bosses are 'holding the country to ransom'?

rabble.ca wrote:The Canadian Press story on Canada Post's lockout notice that was used by most media outfits doesn't even bother to mention the union's position on the key issue of pensions, merely parroting management's talking points with few details.


But apparently Canada Post, packed with managers put in place by the previous Conservative government who are committed to privatization of postal services and the anti-social policies of degrading workers' pensions and blocking pay equity, feel getting their way is important enough to hold the country to ransom.


From a labour relations perspective, this hardly seems like an issue worthy of shutting down the national postal system to bring negotiations that are ongoing to an immediate national crisis.


So this kind of behaviour by Canada Post's senior management lends credence to the suspicion among postal workers that these Tory-appointed executives are trying to derail the review of postal services announced by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau back in May.


Since the Liberals promised during the election campaign to restore home delivery for many Canadians -- as in every other advanced industrialized country -- this presents a real threat to the apparent agenda of the would-be privatizers at the Crown corporation, which has posted a profit in every year in its modern history except 2011, when there was a labour dispute.


"Management will point to this lockout and say the Crown corporation is unsustainable, unprofitable and the dramatic changes it was trying to bring in were the correct ones," writes David Bush in an analysis published by RankAndFile.ca, a pro-union website. "This will be the drum they beat in the media and dutiful columnists and journalists will run with it."

In a news release yesterday, CUPW made much the same point: "They are sabotaging the public review of the post office," said CUPW President Mike Palecek in the release. "They refused to negotiate fairly with us and now they're locking the doors and will try to starve us into submission."


"This is brought to you by the men who wanted to take away home delivery," Palecek said. "They wanted us to sell out the next generation of Canadian postal workers for a quick deal, but we stood firm. Now they're going to hold the public hostage until they get what they want."

Here is a good backgrounder: Four issues driving the CUPW and Canada Post negotiations

This is crazy and probably not actually doable but since politicians are technically employed by us the people, could we lock them out and force them to take pension and salary cuts?