Overnight, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers said that 55,000 Canada Post employees will be going on strike after union negotiations with the Crown corporation falter. As a result, Canada Post said in a release that it expects delays to mail and package delivery as negotiations continue.
Travis Frank is the owner of Graphic Press, a local printing press in Estevan. He noted that there would be downstream impacts to his business as the strike continues.
"That would be a loss of revenue for our business and anybody else in the printing industry where we're printing flyers or mail campaigns that are going direct to mailboxes. It also affects businesses who are still mailing out invoices. A lot of that has gone digital, but there's still quite a few that do that through the mail. It's a little more direct and actually hits the customer for sure - and obviously that would go away."
"A lot of that stuff gets printed here, so that will definitely affect our orders. We'll see a decrease for sure."
Frank said that they mail flyers and other products at least once a week, sometimes more, to customers throughout the province. He said it's hard to mitigate any impact on his business when there's a stoppage in mail delivery.
"Canada Post is the only one who can really do direct-to-mailbox delivery. Obviously, there's a lot of other shipping companies. We do a lot of printing for different businesses that do shipping, so that won't be affected because they'll just use Purolator, FedEx and things like that. But, any of the direct-to-mailbox advertising or direct mailbox invoicing will go and there's not really any other options."
Graphic Press has seen mail stoppages in its time, Frank recalled, with the most recent being the coronavirus pandemic. He's had to pause flyer deliveries until mail delivery resumes. Another change he's seen is that people and businesses have taken advantage of online or digital invoicing. Through the Saskatchewan Printing Industries Association, he's been part of many conversations with Canada Post about how mail delivery changes when there's a pause in service. "Obviously, their union negotiations have to go on. Mail stoppages can really change the way customers are sending out packaging, sending out invoicing and letters to customers, and things like that. As they decline, it can definitely affect our business as a printing industry."
Frank supports the postal workers going on strike and their right to request more from their employer. He's hoping that both sides can come to a resolution, especially with the peak holiday season just around the corner. "We have a lot of companies that are looking to do promotions, looking to mail out different things to their customers, and now having to do that manually over the holiday season would be really difficult."
The Canadian Postal Workers Union has listed the demands they would like to see resolved from Canada Post. Canada Post is keeping Canadians updated during the negotiations here.