Rally Calls for Continued Door to Door Mail Service
Protestors outside MP Bob Zimmer's Office. – photo-250News
Prince George, B.C.- A handful of members of CUPW local 812 and their supporters rallied outside the Prince George constituency office of Prince George-Peace River MP Bob Zimmer this afternoon, calling for an end to plans to eliminate door to door mail delivery.
Canada Post has announced it will be phasing out the service over the next 5 years, and replacing it with community mail boxes. It is one of 5 steps Canada Post says it needs to take to remain viable.
But CUPW Local 812 President Tammy Brushey, says the information about Canada Post being in financial trouble is incorrect “I want people to know that contrary to what people have said, Canada Post has been financially profitable for 17 of the last 18 years to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Brushey also says Canada Post’s statement that only one third of Canadian receive door to door delivery is misleading “What they’re not saying is that some of those deliveries are to apartment buildings, to businesses in kiosks, the truth is, more Canadians are getting delivery ( door to door) than are not.”
She says people are stopping letter carriers on the street and saying they are not happy with the phase out plan, and more and more people are speaking up about it.
The action in Prince George is just one step in the fight to keep door to door service and the jobs of letter carriers. Brushy says they will have a booth at the Hockey Day in Canada event at the CN Centre on Saturday where people can get more information and sign a petition. Similar activities are being planned by CUPW locals across the country.
“I think if we stand up and speak out we can definitely make a change” says Brushey, “ I am very confident our voice will be heard.”
Comments
Aw, come on Folks, Door-to-door mail delivery is and always has been a privilege!
I have lived in the city since 1952, we had general delivery – pick up your mail at the Post Office (3rd and Quebec), walk it home to Central Fort George or take the bus – if you are on their schedule.
Now, having lived in the Haldi area since 1978, we have had community box delivery. Yes, we have to walk about half a mile to collect and another half a mile to bring it home. Yes, this in 2014! Big deal? We get regular mail delivery and parcels in the parcel box.
Get off it, go to the community mail box, get some exercise, get away from the TV – quit your bellyachin!
Yeah, they’re profitable. That’s why they raised the price of a stamp to $1.00.
Time to face facts, we don’t use snail mail anymore due to this thing called the internet.
I like that sign that says “door to door is a right…” Guess my rights have been trampled on for over 40 years now since it’s been that long since I’ve had community mailboxes. Even before they came along all I had was “general delivery” which is pretty much the same as a community mailbox but it was indoors.
Maybe they should just start charging people for door to door delivery.
Doesn’t bother me. I’d stop using them altogether if I could. Been waiting months to hear from CP why I will go months and months without receiving mail only to find out from companies that I deal with, that my mail has been returned to them as “undeliverable”.
Lol “loosing money”, maybe do a little spell check before embarrassing yourself in public.
No more mail, NO MORE BILLS. Why are the largest protesters up front? Ohhh I get it. Too far to walk a block to the community mailbox. I’m sure this protest will cause a groundswell that will overturn Canada Posts decision. I blame Shari Green and Cameron Doltz
“Loosing”… Omg..
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/1528655_10152133827891151_1769645131_n.jpg
I think the union is more upset about the drop in union fees that will come from fewer postal workers than they are about door to door service. Their protest seems a bit self serving.
I have lived in Prince George for about 40 years and we have always received our mail in a community mailbox. It’s inevitable that this is going to happen.
…a handful of members… That’s enough to change or keep the world stable. Sure am glad the headline did not read, “A handful of a member…”. I love the English language.
Unions have always grumbled when they’re gonna lose dues from membership.
I don’t mind picking up what little mail I get from a box. Get over it!.
Icicle: “Their protest seems a bit self serving.”
Ya think?
Let me guess Moose, you are on a rural route and are still using the RR, Site, Box address?
If you are then your mail is undeliverable.
I have written down my opinion and put it in an envelope. It should arrive at 250NEWS in about 3 days.
Seriously.
Canada Post has gone down hill since Harper assigned Depak to privatize it, I mean run it.
The union hasn’t done themselves any favours either.
If the post is such a money losing antiquated thing, why was the government so upset about the lockout 2 years ago and forced all the workers back to work?
I think this is a knee jerk reaction to a business model that needs changing.
Canada post is delivering more and more packages than ever before. Try and shove that TV you ordered online in your superbox.
Flyers (the historical mainstay) are being pushed out to direct internet marketing.
Even Canada Post is encouraging people to get their bill electronically. [url]http://https://www.epost.ca/service/landingPageEn.a[url]
Canada Posts true agenda is to close down all post offices and only have outlets in other places like pharmacies. That way they only have to pay the lower wages pharmacy workers.
Posted by: Nimrod on January 15 2014 9:07 PM
Let me guess Moose, you are on a rural route and are still using the RR, Site, Box address?
If you are then your mail is undeliverable.
Nope. Well inside city limits. I have had to change as many bills as I can to email billing. I haven’t gotten a piece of mail since early December and even then it was a bill that was well over 3 months old and had long been paid.
I think that in about six months Canada Post will announce that they will continue with door-to-door residential delivery, but only once or maybe twice per week, due to the public outcry. The citizens of Canada will rejoice that they still have delivery, albeit at a reduced service level.
Canada Post executives will sit around the board room table and laugh and pat each other on the back, because this is what they were trying to achieve all along.
In the U.S. they still get 6 days delivery. Why should we get only once or twice a week?
Hey nuffnut, Try being 70 to 80 years old and trying to collect your mail in the winter. PPL cant even drive the roads and you want seniors to what break a hip or a leg getting there mail. A lot of seniors have know one to help them, I suppose you think they should be in a home as well.
Harper sure has it out for seniors… make em work until 67, keep interest rates at zero percent so their pensions become unfunded, and take away the front door mail service so they can break a hip and die early….
I think this latest bite into an essential service that should be a right is all about the privatization schemes of Depak. The only arguments in favor of the move to privatized for profit are political and misrepresent the facts.
I think we are all premature calling for the demise of Canada Post and a lot of people are ignoring the huge volume of highly profitable parcel service from online orders expanding the business model considerably with massive new warehouses coming online to keep up with the growth, as well as the move to financial services such as money order deliveries internationally that is highly competitive and profitable and only now being rolled out on a large scale.
We are seeing Canada Post engineered for a privatization so that the insiders can make massive guaranteed profits, while skimping on the services we have all come to expect in a modern society.
I called AMEX and found out that my billing statement was mailed on the 28th of December 2013 to our correct address.
Today is the 16th of January 2014. It still has not arrived in my mailbox.
This has happened before.
I changed my billing to paperless online. Just got a letter from the Bank. Ditto. Paperless statements via email.
BTW, we regularly find mail in our mailbox which should have gone to another address.
“Harper sure has it out for seniors…”
If he is lucky he will be a senior one day too!
Trudeau or Mulcair would do exactly the same thing if they were in Harper’s place.
In the final analysis, they all dance to the “tunes of Finance”, and what those who REALLY hold the purse-strings want from them, they get. And that ISN’T the long suffering taxpayer.
And thus it will be until the general public wakes up and starts to realise that things which are entirely right and proper in regards to the financial affairs of each of us as individuals, do NOT apply the same way in regards to the overall financial affairs of a national government.
Aside from that, do the postal unions worry about the effect on prices for some senior on a fixed income when they’re out on strike for higher wages and more benefits? Do they worry that gramps may keel over with a massive jammer when he runs out of wind shoveling off his sidewalk and stairs so a postie will deliver his pension cheque on time? Not in the slightest.
Any more than those in government, whatever their Party, can ever reconcile their nutty universal policy of ‘100% full employment’ with the FACT that none of the organisations ~ government itself, government owned, or privately owned ~ that are supposed to provide all this employment can ALL ever do that and still ‘balance their books’ under the current rules and conventions of accounting.
They should just privatize the mail system like they have done in much of Europe. This might even save door to door delivery.
As it stands, Canada post is on a path to be losing 1 billion (with a B) dollars per year by 2020. The current model isn’t sustainable and radical changes are needed.
We in smaller communities have always had to go to the post office to pick up our mail, even the seniors. It’s a privilege for you all in the city to have door to door service.
Just commenting on the reasoning here. Those saying they will have issues getting their mail, well how do they get their food? Just saying, I am all for house delivery though I haven’t had it for twenty years.
Livingonwater – According to the sign in the photo its a RIGHT, not a privilege…
I think my Grampa shouted that at Normandy: “WE DEMAND DOOR TO DOOR DELIVERY!!”
I lived in Mackenzie for 36 years and there was never any door to door – everyone had to go down to the post office and get pickup. Now I live in the Okanagan and still have to go to the post office for my mail.
I along with many others have wondered why the door to door has continued to exist.
For another perspective from the southern tropics of BC where we have the highest number of “seniors” have a look at this forum [url]http://forums.castanet.net/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=54535[url]
IMO letter-mail is almost a thing of the past….
i’ve gotten home delivery my entire life except for a brief period living in the fraser valley. I remember enjoying walking to the community mailbox every evening after dinner to pick up the mail. I can count on one hand the number of pieces of ‘real’ mail we get in our mailbox each week, 90 percent is flyers, menus, and other other advertising. we went online years ago for bill payment. although I feel for the employees at CP, how can we possibly justify continued home delivery when the organization keeps hemmoraging money like this? it must be frustrating for employees to hear their higher ups talk about the the money losses at CP, then turn around and see glitzy ads on TV for CP reminding Canadians they deliver parcels at Christmas. I’m all for community boxes, my one concern being security. also, I have neighbours that are seniors and we will certainly offer to pick up their mail for them any time they ask. any decent neighbour should do the same. there, problem solved.
“In the U.S. they still get 6 days delivery. Why should we get only once or twice a week?” .. Yes, if the states does it, we MUST do it as well. Try thinking for yourself for a change and stop thinking everything down south is the end all be all of modern civilization.
Yep, this is all about the loss of union dues and nothing to do with people like your family, friends and neighbors losing their jobs. Freakin morons!
They should at least put a recycle bin beside the community mailboxes so we can funnel all the junk mail right in as soon as we get it. I too get very little ‘real’ mail anymore. It’s 90%+ junk.
Hei, Doneright – I am well into my 70’s!
Get some fresh air, take a hike to the Superbox and back.
Sounds like a case of I don’t get home delivery so no one else should either.
Well said Dragonmaster. And by the way Nuffstuff, you a blessed to still have good health a lot of seniors don’t, and your day will come .
Door to Door should stay, the Feds have been milking the corporation for years and now Harper wants more so cut, cut. Its BS not everyone is on a computer, pays bill the same its about a service we pay for and should continue. Lots of government spin but for most of you here that’s all you look at explains a lot.
It’s quite simple. Those who want door to door to continue should have to pay for the privilege, similar to those who want their analog hydro meters read manually.
steph99 do you know what you are talking about? They are losing money to the point of being a billion dollars in debt to the pension fund, even if they wanted to they have no money to funnel to the Conservatives. They have been on the downhill swing since 1996 and have to retool and reinvent. Canada Post has been running 64% efficiency because of its workforce, average union efficiency is 75%, non-union close to 90%.
JB makes a stable argument, if they want door-to-door then pay for it, like the old days of paper delivery – your carrier will knock on the door and say ‘collecting, thank you’
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