Why didn't anyone tell me? Postal workers in Canada started "rolling strikes" on 2 June; ten days later, Canada Post responded by lockin' 'em out. (The postal workers are citing safety and a scheme under which new hires get significantly less pay and benefits; this, IMO, is a Canadian issue on which my opinion is entirely irrelevant).
That seems to be the status quo to date; the Canadian Federal government has been making back-to-work sounds but doesn't look to have got anything far enough along to resolve matters. (See above).
--One source claims that pension and assistance cheques are being processed; but past that, it would seem not a wheel is turning in the vast nation's entire mail service. If you want to hear from great-aunt Tillie, it's the phone or the 'net. (Unless she's got an amateur radio license).
Labor issues aside (see "knot, Gordian"), this means one unexpected wonderful thing: an entire modern nation, our friendly neighbors to the North, have freed themselves from the scourge of junk mail!
Congratulatuions, Canadians. This is a painful step but some nation had to have the courage to go first.
Update
1 week ago
9 comments:
Sadly, Canada is roughly 1/10 of the U.S. population.
Fixing such things here will probably more difficult, as you said, Knot, Gordian.
USPS employees had a "job action" back in the '80s. Mail addressed to South Africa had a tendency to get ... misdirected. I had to route mail to a South African friend via British friends. They also handled return mail.
Local postmaster said complaints would be pointless as The Union (particularly at the Philadelphia international sorting center) would always win on "moral" grounds.
If the junkmail supply gets cut off, I'll have to buy firewood!
http://www.businessinsider.com/usps-no-longer-contributing-to-employees-pensions-2011-6
Time for the USPS "death spiral" or "bail out" watch to begin! And we can't exactly afford the bail out nowadays either.
OT, but I saw what you did there, Bobby, in the Grauniad commenty thread. You gave one invincible argument against invincible ignorance and stupidity, and then ceased the contra-ventile micturition.
That Jarhead1982A guy, now, he must really be a Marine. He marshalled invincible argument after invincible argument, with lots of invincible data, and was not able to overcome the invincible ignorance and stupidity.
Hey, Marines are stubborn, and don't quit. I like that about them.
Arguing with a leftard using reason really is like wrestling with a pig in the mud, methinks. Marines are famously also willing to get down into the mud, if they deem it necessary.
I really have nothing to say, but am commenting just to mention the WV word:
loins. As in, gird yer loins, or, um in another sense, and yes I um, well, never mind, and Bobby is a chaste spinster, and, uh, I'll stop now.
I just love postal strikes, and I've been feeling deprived in recent years. Nary a single flyer has darkened the threshold of my mailbox for days. No bills either.
And if I really need to pay for something far away, well OMG, there's Pay Pal, internet banking and...
Like certain other sectors (can a former GM worker say "rice burner" any more?)these overpaid, underworked parasites are getting a lesson in their own indispensability.
Too bad the government is legislating them back to work.
Where's Ronald Regan when we really need to borrow him for a bit? We got us an airport up here that needs a new name, and I got an idea...
now I need to find a copy of "The Postman" with Kevin Costner
Noel
If you want to hear from great-aunt Tillie, it's the phone or the 'net. (Unless she's got an amateur radio license).
There you go Bobbi.hamming it up again,
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