{"id":10596,"date":"2011-06-17T10:11:53","date_gmt":"2011-06-17T15:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=10596"},"modified":"2011-06-17T10:15:48","modified_gmt":"2011-06-17T15:15:48","slug":"hot-topics-canada-post-strike-could-reduce-reliance-on-snail-mail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2011\/06\/hot-topics-canada-post-strike-could-reduce-reliance-on-snail-mail\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot Topics: Canada Post strike could reduce reliance on snail mail"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Felice

Felice Martinello<\/p><\/div>\n

If the federal government legislates Canada Post employees back to work this week, neither side will win, says Felice Martinello<\/a>, a professor of Economics who has studied unions and labour disputes.<\/p>\n

In any labour dispute, a negotiated settlement is always preferable to arbitration forced by political parties, says Martinello, who is a contributing faculty member to the University\u2019s Centre for Labour Studies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Canada Post strike<\/a>, expected to end with federal legislation next week, could accelerate what is already an eventuality, which is the gradual decline of Canada Post, Martinello says. But he doesn\u2019t predict an end to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a declining industry, but Canada Post is not going to disappear by any means.”<\/p>\n

Martinello shared some of his thoughts about the strike with The Brock News<\/em>.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Why has public opinion been so against Canada Post?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A lot of that is history. They have been characterized as a very militant union that has been willing to impose big hardships on the Canadian economy and the Canadian public in order to match their bargaining demands. It\u2019s not just the union. I would say the corporation isn\u2019t held in very high esteem either. Both have a reputation of being perfectly willing to impose big costs on the Canadian population.<\/p>\n

There has also been a change in perception. The trend has been toward a more negative view of public sector workers, especially public sector unions. The economy has been through some very hard times over last three or four years and there\u2019s no doubt public sector workers have more insulation against the vagaries of the market place.<\/p>\n

How much of a role does the economy play in public opinion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The line I\u2019ve been using amongst my own colleagues \u2013 because here at Brock, the Brock University Faculty Association is preparing for its own collective bargaining \u2013 is that in late 2008, we suddenly woke up one morning and we were a lot less rich than we thought we were just a few days before. That has really happened across the board, and it has had a huge effect on everybody. It\u2019s human nature, when you see a group striking and imposing costs on you because they are trying to do better for themselves, to say \u201cWhy aren\u2019t they sucking it up like the rest of us?\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you see this strike as doing any permanent damage to Canada Post?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I see it as accelerating some of the things that probably would have happened anyway. It is a declining industry. It\u2019s not going to disappear. It will still be a large corporation doing lots of work. But the strike will accelerate everyone\u2019s transition away from paper-based products to electronic ones. Habit plays a huge role in what we do. Before this, people were happy to do mail-based billing because that\u2019s what they\u2019ve always done. This forces them to change over the interim. Once they change, it will become the default, and some won\u2019t change back.<\/p>\n

And believe me, both sides know this. But it cuts back to the fundamental nature of the system. The nature of a work stoppage is to wage economic war and do damage to each other until an offer that previously looked unacceptable starts to look like something you can live with.<\/p>\n

Related articles:<\/strong>
\n\u2022 Tories willing to delay summer break to get Canada Post back to work | The Globe and Mail<\/em><\/a>
\n\u2022 One strike down, one to go | Ottawa Citizen<\/em><\/a>
\n\u2022 Back-to-work legislation: Should Ottawa force Canada Post employees back to work? | cbc.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The strike could accelerate what is already an eventuality: a gradual decline of Canada Post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[65,175,31],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10596"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10600,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10596\/revisions\/10600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}