Monday 20 October 2014

Letter carriers vs. community mail boxes

This box hangs open,
you can see how small they are!

I've always loved the post office. Not so much
the boxes, but getting mail. When we lived in Bala, we'd walk the 2km to the Post Office.

My hubby's mother worked for Canada Post in Chesterville for many years. She supported her mom and dad, as well as hubby, this way. Don't we need Canadians to have jobs?

Now we rely on our mailbox at the end of the driveway. They deliver the mail in a wee truck, driving wheel on the right. This is rural mail!

We order a lot by email. These packages often fit into our mailbox, but sometimes they come through UPS. My UPS guy is a pet, as my mom would have said. He told me a little bit about their working conditions. He delivers to our area, about an hour out of Ottawa. He has to drive back into the city at the end of the day. I asked if he had kids and he said, no. He told me their hours are too long. He often doesn't get home until 8 at night, and this is bad for families. Many families are ending up divorced. Despite UPS claiming to be a people oriented employer, it is impossible to get time off for things like kid's soccer games.

This is the way Canada Post is going to go. Private companies will rise up, employees won't have union rights, nor any bargaining power. This will take us back to the bad old days.

I've signed a petition. I think it might be slacktivism, but since CUPW is lobbying, I figured it couldn't hurt. I can't remember Canada Post asking my opinion.



Rideau Ferry Postal Boxes
It's a nice shelter
What a mess

Winter is a trial


 

Then there are the men and women who will lost their jobs – from coast-to-coast.
Why weren't Canadians thoughts considered? Small businesses want daily mail. Canada Post refused to grandfather door-to-door. 
Citizens wanted to go to every-other-day services, at least, rather than nothing.
They are ticking off many people with the placement of these boxes. It is fine in a new development, but think of inner city locations and the suburbs, where there isn't space.
Vancouver
Perth
OTTAWACITIZEN.COM
A Kanata woman will no longer have to ask for help to get her mail after Canada Post said Tuesday they have switched her to a box that's easier 


    Another community mailbox. Another victim.
    An 81-year-old Windsor man is blaming Canada Post for eight stitches around his eye. Irving McLeod said...
    BLOGS.WINDSORSTAR.COM


Canada Post | National Post

news.nationalpost.com/tag/canada-post/
Union taking Canada Post to federal court over plan to end door-to-door mail ... a 'serial job killer' as hundreds protest decision to end door-to-door delivery ...
  1. OTTAWACITIZEN.COM
    The conversion from door-to-door mail delivery is not going smoothly in one Kanata neighbourhood where some residents say Canada Post is ignoring their suggestions about the placement of the street...


  2. Olivia Chow decries Canada Post cuts as ‘destroying’ mail services while Justin Trudeau slams timing



    'These job-killing and service-cutting measures will isolate seniors, the poor and the disabled living in urban areas,' Olivia Chow said

10 comments:

Hilary said...

I can't disagree with your sentiment behind it - I hate to see our mail service change this way. But neither can I help but think about how our technology has cut down on how much people use Canada Post. I don't know how they would be able to make it a viable choice to keep delivering the way they did when their services were used for everything.

I no longer use snail mail for letters or bill payments. Many of my bills are received electronically. If 90% of what we used to use Canada Post for has become obsolete, how are they to support the same workers to handle the much smaller load to the same geographical destinations?

I think it's simply a matter of how things change. It's still about the bottom line as with any business.

Jenn Jilks said...

Hilary, I know what you mean.
One thing to be careful about this, though: what if you pay the bills, and you die. Your spouse won't necessarily be able to access your e-bills!
I get paper bills, to have them on hand, Hilary.
Having moving several times in the last while, it's netter to have them accessible. I pay most electronically.

Red said...

I have mixed feelings on this issue. Yes, it's about people losing jobs and services. Yes, companies will come in and charge more. However, as a farm kid we got mail about one a week. I lived in the Arctic and there were times we didn't get mail for 6 weeks. I don't need mail every day.

A Colorful World said...

The loss of jobs makes it seem ridiculous! If there wasn't so much junk mail being delivered maybe it wouldn't take the postman so long each day. They should make advertisers find another way to get their flyers out and not be able to use the mails.

William Kendall said...

My dad spent the bulk of his working life as a letter carrier before retirement. He liked it.

What's going on right now is the work of a thug in the Prime Minister's office whose entire modus operandi is strangle anything he disagrees with, especially if they're unions. Canada Post is being decimated to satisfy the whims of that prick of a prime minister.

Jenn Jilks said...

I so agree, Red. Small business insisted on mail every day. People don't care every day, or every other.
The jobs they will lose is so sad.

Anonymous said...

Adorable mailboxes. Here in Sweden, we still have mail delivered, but all the post offices have disappeared and can now be found in supermarkets.

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
Aust Post privatised, there was outcry... but many of the workers got on the roll and took up the private delivery contracts. Receiver would hardly know the difference.

I guess what I am reading here is that the govt. is seeking to maintain control and enforce central collection points.

My experience of such things (usually found outside the any apartment bldgs in Sydney), is something like the photo you have above... no one wants to take unsolicited mail inside and for reasons beyond understanding neither do they think to bin it. Just horrid.

Certainly postal services the world over have had to respond to the changing communications methods, but this one does seem a tad draconian... YAM xx

Judy said...

You don't mention what effect this has on the handicapped. A friend is in a wheelchair, and they have placed her mailbox where there is not enough room for the chair to reach the boxes, and put her little box at the top of the big box... The hoops she is having to jump through to get mail delivered to her door!

Christine said...

This might be a losing battle, a sign of the times and cost cutting.