FYI - Canada Post is on strike (again/still)

[HerbertTarkel]

Since Friday. CUPW went back to the lines after the latest appalling attempt at privatizing Canada Post was rejected.

Sucks, but Canada Post is a SERVICE, not a BUSINESS. No one cares how much money the other parts of government make.

Solidarity. 👊

[pixelgeek]

Well you can't privatise it if people think of it as a service

[Pattus Magnus]

It’s certainly thrown a wrench in a couple of gaming related purchases I made. They will be sitting in warehouses somewhere for the duration.

[Minor non-partisan political aside here]
IMO, management and the union are in difficult situations on this, due to the wider situation neither side created (mainly the shift toward digital communication for nearly everything, and the profusion of parcel delivery companies and Amazon running its own delivery service in-house). They’ll have to figure out some compromise, or they’ll “hang together”. Or the federal government (and taxpayers) will have to get used to large annual bailout payments. There aren’t any bad guys here, just a really difficult bind for everyone.   

[HerbertTarkel]

Yeah. I have two shipments now in limbo, and some stuff to sell that I cannot.

Management, CUPW, and even the general overhaul idea of Canada Post are wildly varied. No idea where this will all land. Obviously I hope that the government kills the Crown Corp, and returns Canada Post to be an agency, even.

The reality, is that Canada Post is facing privatization.

[carlos marighela]

The problem is that every bright spark looks at that PoS Bezos and thinks ‘Hey, we can do Amazon lite’.  They forget that Amazon doesn’t do letters and nor does it provide the breadth and depth of services that most postal services provide. They forget that Amazon and its ilk are in part and in some parts largely reliant on existing postal services. They forget that in large countries like Canada or Oz, Amazon can’t provide a service to remote communities without utilising the postal service that we already paid for.

I wish the postal workers well in Canada.

Having said that I kinda wish someone would put a bomb under Correios in Brazil. The other week I went to post a package to a friend in Vitoria. After progressing at snails pace through a relatively small queue, I presented my package (the cost of which to travel to the adjacent state being mote than the value of the items) only to be told that they weren’t accepting cards*and did I have cash perchance? Having insufficient cash, I then had to join a larger queue at the bank and cash in hand return to what was now a much longer queue at the post office. The laconic manner of most Brazilian postal workers intimates no fear of privatisation or threat from competition.


*The fact that the post office provides other services that require the use of a card makes this all the more bizarre.

[Rick]

Well don't bank on Mark Carney making the best decisions for Canadians - his past performance of meddling where he shouldn't and effing things up is shocking, no wonder Trump did all he could to get Carney elected.

[Westfalia Chris]

Wouldn't it be nice if we could throttle down on the politics aspect, eh?

[Pattus Magnus]

There are few things like a postal service to rouse gamers’ passions!   

I’ll refrain from any future political asides. I’m just looking forward to service resuming and receiving the shipments that are currently in transit.

[Rick]

Wouldn't it be nice if we could throttle down on the politics aspect, eh?

Sorry Chris, I will endeavour to do better.

[Westfalia Chris]

Sorry Chris, I will endeavour to do better.

It's not you in particular, Rick. This is just one of those topics that, of course, are

a ) of interest to many for obvious practical reasons,

b ) at the same time inherently political beyond the purely economic scope.

The main problem, to my mind, is that discussing the political aspects which we cannot influence in the short term only serves to increase frustration and rile up people in this environment while not yielding any tangible benefit, such as tips how to make the best of it or find solutions for the resulting issues (hard to do in such cases, I'll admit).

There are other venues for "political discussion", this is for the hobby. I for one could lament the shameful abandonment of ordoliberalism (or what passed for it in the English-speaking world), which to my mind is the root cause of today's socioeconomic problems, for ages and pages, but nobody wants to hear that either, and it won't take us anywhere.

So please focus on practical information on the issue, if you come across such. That will actually be helpful as opposed to taking snide potshots at various targets, both present and hypothetical.