Canada Post negotiations remain at a standstill

Negotiations between Canada Post and its union remain at a standstill as the postal strike enters its fourth week.

Some local businesses are feeling the pinch, while others have moved on.

Justin Bester is the owner of Minuteman Press, a Hamilton printing company. He says he’s anticipating a 10 to 15 percent loss in sales by the end of the holiday season due to the strike.

“Well, we’re experiencing a loss of revenue because customers who want to mail a brochure, flyer, or fundraising program to a client—especially at Christmas, when a lot of people want to give—are unable to do so. If we’re able to complete that before Christmas, there’s not going to be any printing happening. We’ll lose sales,” Justin said.

In the same boat as Bester is Mary Nguyen, one of the owners of Chocolat on James North. She says the strike has been affecting her inventory.

“Chocolate boxes, chocolate bags for packaging all of our stuff, and the ribbons too. The inventory is not coming,” Mary said.

Nguyen says she has no choice but to pivot, and it’s costing her, “I have to use another delivery service to bring the stuff in, but it costs more than Canada Post.”

Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, says the strike is having a massive impact on small to medium businesses.

“This has been disastrous for many small and medium-sized companies. We’ve estimated the cost at $76 million per day of the strike for small businesses, and as of last week, it hit $1 billion in negative impact to small companies,” said Dan.

The Christmas rush is making the strike worse for deliveries.

Dan says, “Not only do we have the Canada Post strike to contend with, but now private couriers are saying that they are not in a position to pick up additional new packages to get goods out before Christmas.”

But not all hope is lost, as Dan believes some people might return to in-person shopping.

Canada Post says they are still awaiting a formal response from CUPW to their last proposal.

The crown corporation says it includes important measures to close the gap on key issues like weekend delivery, pensions, and wages.