Businesses and customers prepare for possible postal strike this week

Canadians curious about the relevance of the country’s aging postal service could get a taste of what a shuttered snail mail system might be like later this week.

Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers’ (CUPW) rapidly approaching July 2 deadline means that as of Saturday a work stoppage could be on the table – via strike or lockout – putting 40,000 urban and rural employees on pause.

“We understand the impact a work disruption would have on customers and are therefore doing everything possible to reach a negotiated settlement quickly,” said a statement issued by the postal service. “While a labour disruption remains a possibility, we are asking customers to take precautions.”

Negotiations over key items like job security, pension reform and how to stay competitive in a rapidly digitized world have been ongoing since November 2015. A breakdown leading to a postal worker lockout in 2011 lasted nearly three weeks before the Conservative government passed back-to-work legislation. During that time, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business estimated losses at $200 to $250 per day with many of those businesses turning to couriers in response to the stalled service.

But for businesses that rely almost exclusively on the mail – subscription services, greeting cards, wedding invites – a strike could bring business to a halt.

“Canada Post delivers 11 billion pieces of mail every year. That may be in decline … but it is still a major player,” John Gustavson, president of the Canadian Marketing Association told the Globe and Mail while speaking to the impact on direct mail advertisers and flyer-based marketing.

But overall, many businesses in the printing industry said they would be switching to alternative carriers in the meantime.

“On the printing side (TC Transcontinental Printing), some of our printing segments such as direct mail and magazines could be impacted depending on our customers’ decisions,” Katherine Chartrand, external communications director at TC Media told PrintCAN. “The impact is difficult to assess at this point in time since it will depend on the type of strike, the impacted areas (rural regions or urban centres) and the length of the strike.”

Licensed medical marijuana producers and patients have also expressed concerns that the strike could effect access given that Health Canada only allows distribution of cannabis via mail.

“We are a good and getting-better-every-day customer of Canada Post,“ Bruce Linton, CEO and founder of Canopy Growth Corp., which operates the Tweed marijuana production facility in Smiths Falls, Ont. told CBC. “And so it is kind of unfortunate and ridiculous that this [postal dispute] will have them not be able to service a market that’s actually growing for them.”

For consumers, the post agency has urged Canadians to send out any regular mail bound for Canada June 27 in order to ensure delivery by June 30. Expedited parcels to be sent locally should be mailed by June 29. Xpresspost due nationally or regionally should be sent by June 28 and parcels being sent by Xpresspost locally should be sent by June 29. Priority mail local, regional or national should be sent by June 29 in order to get to its destination before the potential strike.

“Any mail and parcels within the postal system during a work disruption will be secured and delivered as quickly as possible once operations resume,” noted the organization.

Time for change?

Some groups, however, are urging Canadians to use this as an opportunity to pare back their snail mail ways even further.

The Canadian Bankers Association has encouraged Canadians to sign up for online banking if they haven’t already and skip the mail altogether by paying any phone, cable or utility bills directly through their banking platform.

“If you receive cheques or regular payments from other organizations or government agencies, find out how you can receive these payments in other ways,” said a statement by the organization. “If possible, sign up for direct deposit so the payments are automatically deposited into your bank account.”

The CBA statement echoes encouragements by the British Columbia and New Brunswick governments to sign up for direct deposits. Manitoba, on the other hand, has established a series of pick-up locations for essential and government-related mail.

For online shoppers, e-commerce platforms have pointed towards private courier services as a means to get products from A to B. Canadian e-commerce platform Shopify works with netParcel to provide discount rates for shipping with major couriers, UPS, Purolator and FedEx. From a consumer perspective, FedEx Ground rates for packages weighing 0.5 kg (about the weight of a letter) start at $7.65 whereas Canpar ground service starts at $9.35. Purolator ground rates start at about $14.15 for a package the same size and UPS Expedited two-day shipping will set you back about $13.75 with prices increasing based on the distance and weight.

There are also a variety of other local courier services filling the gap in major cities and even rural areas but as netParcel pointed out in a blog post highlighting the volume these couriers are going to face in the event of a postal service shutdown lasting 6 to 8 weeks, their fixed amount of capacity could lead to price hikes.

“They cannot build new trucks or source new warehouses to handle the increased volume for such a sudden increase in volume which will likely only last for a few weeks,” the company wrote. “To counter this, UPS are trying to encourage deliveries to access points, for residential deliveries a steep surcharge will be applied, Loomis is upping their residential delivery charge to $5 for all customers without an alternate access point strategy (and) Purolator is only taking on customers who sign-up for a 12 month contract in order to protect their delivery network.”