With thousands of Canada Post workers on strike, some Calgary business owners say this couldn’t have come at a worse time.
More than 55,000 Canada Post workers are now on strike, bringing mail service across the country to a halt.
And with the holiday season right around the corner, some Calgary business owners are expressing concern about how the strike could impact what’s typically their busiest time of year.
Tommy Zizian, the owner of Calgary-based company Sock Rocket. Each month, he mails socks to his list of subscribers across Canada.
“I went down to the depot to drop them off, but obviously, they won’t accept them so they’ll be with me for a while,” he said, showing CityNews his vehicle with all his November subscriptions.
“This is the most difficult time of year for this to happen.”
He was told Canada Post would not be able to ship his products, leaving his customers with cold feet.
“It’s tough, I mean Canada Post is the backbone of our business as far as small-time shipping goes,” he said.
“So that all halted now, and we take all that back and people won’t get their subscriptions for the time being. We’ll do our best but there’s not a whole lot we can do.”
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With the holiday season fast approaching, Zizian says it’s too short notice to switch to another courier service.
He fears this could have a direct impact on his sales during what is supposed to be his busiest time of the year.
“There’s there’s no way around it. Yeah, we will lose money because of this and customers won’t get their socks in time for when they’re hoping for because of this.”
And he’s not alone.
Jennifer Leblond, the owner of a handmade local goods store on 17th Avenue, says she uses Canada Post almost daily to ship to her customers outside of Calgary. She says she’s feeling frustrated by the timing of the strike.
“If you’re trying to garner support for your cause, this is not doing it,” she said.
“The major people that use you are small businesses, like 80 per cent of us use Canada Post, so I mean, it’s astounding that it’s come to this point.”
Leblond however says she will be able to utilize other means of shipping, but she’ll have to cover all additional costs herself. She’s holding out hope that the strike will be short-lived.
“I hope they can help resolve this, so we can all get back to business.”
Watch: Calgary, province and feds adapting amid Canada Post labour disruption
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) issued a 72-hour strike notice earlier in the week, saying it’s been asking for fair wages, safer working conditions and other improvements over nearly a year of bargaining.
Canada Post served the union with the lockout notice not long after but had said it didn’t intend to lock workers out.
The Crown corporation previously said that if there is labour action, it will do its best to minimize service disruptions, but delays may be unavoidable.
It said mail and parcels will not be processed or delivered throughout the national strike, and some post offices will be closed.
“Service guarantees will be impacted for items already in the postal network. No new items will be accepted until the national disruption is over,” it said Friday.
It also warned that a labour disruption would make its already serious financial situation worse, as a competitive parcel delivery market has increasingly challenged Canada Post in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ahead of the strike deadline, federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said he formally appointed the director general of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services as a special mediator to help in the talks.
With files from Emma Crawford, Lucas Casaletto, and Charlie Carey
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