Winter Weather Taking A Toll On Mail Carriers

By 250 News

Canada Post letter carrier delivering through Wednesday's snowstorm

Prince George, B.C. - With several heavy snowstorms over the months of January and February, and as recently as Wednesday, this winter has been a particularly rough one for the city's Canada Post mail carriers...

Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 8-12 President, Tami Brushey, says, the job is always "different every day" because of the weather. But she says, "This winter, it's been a bad job every day - it doesn't seem like there have been many days where it's been nice and mild and the streets have been clear."

And Brushey says it's taking a toll on the local letter carriers. "There's been everything here from sprained muscles, torn ligaments, to broken bones." She says a number of carriers are off and the 'fatigue factor' is setting in for those continuing to trudge through all the snow.

Brushey says carriers can be forced to do overtime. She says after completing their own route, Canada Post can require them to take out a piece of an unstaffed route for delivery up until 8pm.  "That means they're out there working in the dark and some of them are working 10 and 12-hour days and then getting up the next morning to start it all over again," Brushey says. "And so, when the fatigue factor goes up, so does the injury rate and so there's some pretty exhausted and tired people working for Canada Post here in town."  Under the Canada Labour Code, they can work to a maximum 48-hours per week.

CUPW and Canada Post are in contract negotiations right now. They've spent the past week meeting with a conciliator in Ottawa. Brushey says health and safety concerns such as these are always part of negotiations, and staffing is always an issue. She says, "Right now, here in Prince George, we've had two casual letter carriers quit in the last week because they're overwhelmed." The union rep blames the difficulty in keeping casual workers on both the nature of the work in winter and on the required overtime.

"People that work for Canada Post in this city are all pretty proud of their jobs and they want to do a good job and it's been a long and difficult winter and proper staffing would definitely help us to stay healthy and stay at work," Brushey says.

"If there's anything else I'd say, it's to ask people to please keep their driveways as cleared as possible and to keep their porch lights on for their posties because we're out there in the dark, so that's things people can do for us."

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