While the labour dispute at Canada Post hasn't yet resulted in picket lines in Nelson, it is affecting the delivery of local mail.
According to Canadian Union of Postal Workers local 790 president Bruce Northcott, the post office didn't replace a letter carrier who was away this week to be with his ill father. That resulted in routes not being delivered on Monday and Tuesday, which accounted for about a tenth of the city's mail.
“If anyone's absent, normally they call in a temporary worker,” Northcott explains. “They offer it to people on the floor, but if it's not taken, we have six temporary workers who can come in. They're just not going that step — they're leaving it unattended.”
On Monday, the route that includes Vernon Street doctors' offices, Granite Manor, High Street Place, did not get mail. On Tuesday, Northcott himself was assigned that route, but mail was instead not delivered to Uphill from Delbruck Street up. They are among nine full-time routes.
Things returned to semi-normal on Wednesday as the absent worker returned, but Northcott says other staffing shortages are expected to be handled the same way.
Starting next week, urban centres including Nelson will be going to three days per week delivery — Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
Canada Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but according to a statement on its website, the rotating strike that began last week in major centres has halved mail volumes.
The corporation says it has been “forced to immediately reduce costs by making adjustments to staffing and delivery schedules ... Canada Post must act now to avoid significant losses that will harm the company’s financial self-sustainability.”
Canada Post says it is cutting labour costs by reducing staff at processing plants and limiting the delivery of letters and admail to three days a week in urban areas. However, delivery to rural and community mailboxes will continue five days a week, and post office hours remain unchanged.
Northcott says overtime has been suspended and vacations cancelled.
“Any of us on vacation this week or last are now on leave without pay unless we come back,” he says. “If you're in Hawaii right now, too bad.”
He considers it a “retaliatory move,” although for the moment he believes they are coping in Nelson: “I think we're staffed inside enough right now, but if someone goes missing, they won't cover it.”
While the volume of corporate mailouts — such as credit card applications — has been drastically reduced, he says personal mail “is having a free for all through the system, because there's not a lot for us to do.”
Northcott represents workers under an urban contract, while a separate bargaining unit covers rural workers, whose contract expires at the end of the year.
“They'll be working whether they have mail coming to them or not,” he says. “Should we go on a nationwide strike, those people will still go to work, although I don't know what they'll do.”
Northcott adds that he has no insight on the union's overall strategy and no idea whether the rotating strike will come to smaller areas.
He says while the strike is nominally about money, he sees it as a fight to improve service and preserve jobs.