Postal Strike

Photo courtesy cbc.ca

Last night at midnight, Canada's postal workers began a series of what we are told will be rotating strikes, when they went off the job in Winnipeg, Manitoba.  The city of Hamilton, Ontario will be the next city affected, as local workers there go off the job this weekend. 

It just leaves me wondering, will the majority of Canadians even notice? If they do, will they care?  Personally, I don't think I have ever mailed anything to either Winnipeg or Hamilton, so I am not immediately affected.  The last time we had a postal strike, I started paying bills online and I haven't looked back.  However, I do still receive paper copies of bills on a monthly basis, just to remind me that they need to be paid, so I'll need to keep track of what I owe to whom so I'm not late making any of my payments. On the flip side, I hardly ever send anything by snail mail and anything that I do is not usually time sensitive.  But I imagine there are those who still pay their bills by tucking a cheque into an envelope and popping it in the mailbox who will be a little worried, now that that system is being disrupted.

People who rely on monthly government cheques to exist will certainly be affected, although many such cheques were mailed in advance this month in anticipation of the strike - I was in line at the bank yesterday behind two people who tried to deposit cheques they had already received which were post-dated to June 10th, so hopefully everyone else has their cheques in hand by now and won't be affected by this job action in the short term. We are being told that postal workers have volunteered to take one day a month off from the picket lines to deliver government cheques. Hopefully it won't come to that, that this strike should carry on for that long.

Obviously, the Internet is a huge threat to Canada's Post's every day business and they've been suffering since so many of us have discovered how quick and easy and cheap it is to communicate via computer. I'm not sure that the postal workers realize that they might be shooting themselves in the foot by going off the job.  They are more likely to either anger people or make them realize that the mail is a disposable service, rather than generate sympathy for their concerns, which apparently involve health and safety matters. 
In the meantime, if you were planning to send me anything by mail, you might want to hold off.  Or send me something and let's see how long it takes to arrive, just for fun!