Tyler McCombs has about 500 pairs of underwear stuck in the mail.
The packages are trapped in Canada Post’s delivery network as a nationwide strike — which has now dragged on for two weeks — has brought its postal system to a standstill.
“I feel like a pawn right now in some big fight,” said the owner of Devon + Lang, a small underwear company in Calgary that does most of its sales online.
“It’s really terrible they chose Black Friday and the holiday season to make this fight a public thing. It’s not just hurting Canada Post. It’s hurting all Canadians, and it’s hurting me and a lot of small businesses,” he said.
Retailers across Canada have scrambled to find different shipping companies to send out orders — at the busiest shopping time of year.
But using another courier is often more expensive, especially for small businesses. Shipping a pair of underwear now costs McCombs’s company anywhere from 50 cents to $12 extra, depending on where the person lives.
“All of our profit margin is gone when we do that. So we have to unfortunately increase the shipping prices.”
Canada Post’s busiest season, with 2M daily deliveries
Jon Hamilton, a spokesperson for Canada Post, said the week after Black Friday is always the Crown corporation’s busiest, with some two million parcels delivered every day that week.
“To be sitting on the sidelines during the busiest shopping period of the year is devastating to the business, but also incredibly difficult for our employees and the many people who count on us,” Hamilton wrote in an email to CBC News.
“We are committed to negotiating to reach new agreements, but being shut down at this time of year means the Christmas rush has gone elsewhere.”
- Have you had a hard time getting your holiday packages because of the Canada Post strike? What are you doing instead? Send an email to ask@cbc.ca.
More than 55,000 Canadian Union of Postal Workers members went on strike on Nov. 15, following a year of failed negotiations to reach a new collective agreement. Among other things, the union has asked for a 22 per cent wage increase over four years, while Canada Post has offered half that.
Peter Denley, CUPW national director of the central region, said workers would rather deliver holiday gifts than be on strike.
“This was not something we wanted to do,” he said during a rally in Ottawa Thursday.
“The fact is that Canada Post watched their market share and parcels slide for five years and never came to the union to ask for solutions,” Denley said. “Now, they show up at the table demanding concessions and a big financial crisis.”
Canada Post has lost more than $3 billion since 2018, as it struggles to compete in the growing parcel delivery market. The corporation has warned it could run out of operating funds by this spring.
The postal operator is required by law to deliver to all Canadian addresses, and is not funded by taxpayers. Instead, it is expected to be self-sustaining through the sale of its services.
Extra shipping costs could be passed on to consumers
Customers may see the price tag of their online holiday purchases rise, as sellers account for the extra shipping fees, according to Santo Ligotti with the Retail Council of Canada.
“That cost could be added on to their final bill,” he said.
Their parcels might also be delayed, as Canada Post’s competitors try to keep up with the increased demand, he said.
“Retailers have been telling us that the alternatives are at capacity, given that they’re taking up all of that additional package delivery from Canada Post,” Ligotti said.
Until the strike, McCombs said his company exclusively used Canada Post to ship underwear orders out. But he won’t anymore unless he has to.
“I’m tired of having to deal with all this uncertainty,” McCombs said.
“As a business, I need to be able to know for sure that I can ship a product out and it’s going to get to my customer,” he said.
“Canada Post was easy, but it’s not easy anymore.”
No end to strike in sight
The union has accused Canada Post of trying to hire more part-time workers and refusing to increase wages to keep up with inflation. It also says the Crown corporation has been laying off striking workers.
Meanwhile, Canada Post has said it can’t afford what CUPW is asking for, and has accused it of stalling negotiations.
Negotiations have broken down between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers for the first time since a countrywide strike began. The federally appointed special mediator found that ‘parties remain too far apart on critical issues for mediation to be successful at this time,’ wrote Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon.
On Wednesday, a federally appointed mediator suspended talks for the first time since the strike began because the two sides were too far apart for negotiations to be productive.
Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon has said if a deal isn’t reached through negotiations, there will be no end to the dispute.