Local CUPW 812 President Nicole Chouinard is taking a “believe it when I see it” approach after Canada Post stated rural mail delivery will be protected in its overhaul.
The postal company has been given a 45-day window by Ottawa to outline their plan to modernize service measures that were spearheaded by federal minister Joel Lightbound.
Chouinard told Vista Radio this week, with the labour squabble approaching two years in length, the issue of getting a deal done has become too much of a political football.
“We have a collective agreement. It needs to be bargained and it needs to be ratifiable. The government involvement created a huge smoke screen instead of what was actually going on and has worked against us every step of the way in negotiating a collective agreement. We are not even having the same conversation anymore.”
“We were a year into negotiations with our employer and they had shown us time and time again we are not interested in negotiating until the government got involved. When the government got involved, the government backed them and created instance after instance of delay and diverted the attention of the negotiations away to the future of Canada Post.”
Chouinard added while the commitment to keeping rural delivery sounds good, it’s also one of the bigger ticket items for Canada Post.
“The union has urged them for decades (the federal government) to not only maintain service to those rural communities but to grow service in those rural communities because it grows revenue and it creates more service for communities with limited resources.”
“It is quite a bit more expensive to deliver 100 parcels in the northern reaches of own province than it is to deliver one hundred parcels in a high-rise in Toronto. It is one thing for them to say they are actual going to keep rural service, it is another to actually prove that.”
As for community mail boxes, replacing door-to-door delivery, Chouinard added a change like that will be an issue for our elderly population, especially those with chronic health and mobility issues.
“There are people who are disabled who may not have enough of a hindrance to qualify for the delivery accommodation program but will still struggle not having the mail delivered to their address, that is something they can say is going to be fine, but it’s not.”
“The reality is that it’s a process to go through that delivery accommodation for an address. Not every senior is going to have the ability to qualify for that process but every senior with mobility issues is going to struggle to get to a community mailbox.”
Last month, the federal government ordered Canada Post to begin a sweeping overhaul that could spell the end of traditional door-to-door delivery among other changes.
Since 2018 the corporation has lost more than $5 billion, including over $1 billion last year.
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