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Small businesses, charities stuck in 'limbo' due to Canada Post strike

Stuck in postal strike 'limbo'

Cindy White

The Canada Post strike has been underway for less than a week but it’s already having a significant negative impact on small businesses.

“Let’s be honest, there’s a certain period between now, coming up with Black Friday, small businesses online, they rely on that service. So it’s really affecting those small businesses,” said Colleen Clark, acting CEO at the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce.

“Even our local businesses that have a mom-and-pop storefront but have an online option, they might not get that same level of business this year if they can’t do the shipping the way they want to.”

She says it could spell the end for some who have struggled through five years of disruptions from the pandemic to wildfires.

Businesses that rely on Canada Post faced with much higher courier rates

For Michelle Knutilla, of Busy Woman Creations, it means some of the items she needs to make her products that she sells online and at local craft markets are stuck in limbo.

“They’re in the Canada Post system but they’re not moving and we don’t know when that’s going to end, so we don’t know when we’re going to get it,” she explained. “I just had things stuck out in the ocean because of the port strike and now it’s in port and can’t go anywhere else from there either.”

She says using a courier service is very cost-prohibitive, noting that most have raised their prices for the holiday season.

That’s a similar concern for Chris Pafiolis of Sweetlegs, one of Kelowna’s largest fashion e-commerce companies.

Pafiolis says Sweetlegs uses Canada Post to deliver to rural customers and people who only have a postal box address. Switching to a courier service for those orders is likely to be two to three times more expensive.

Donations to charities could drop during important giving season

It’s not just businesses like Knutilla’s and Pafiolis’s taking a hit. Charities are scrambling to ensure donations that they rely on for a big chunk of their budgets don’t fall by the wayside.

“This is our biggest charitable giving season,” said Carmen Rempel, executive director of the Kelowna Gospel Mission.

“Our Christmas match campaign launches next week (Nov. 26) so we actually have $150,000 of matching funds that we need to match somehow. And we rely very much on cheques coming in through the mail, donations coming in through the mail, to bring in those matching funds.”

Workers want negotiated settlement

To the union, this is a fight to preserve services and protect workers.

“You know, in 2020 we were here for the pandemic and we actually signed an agreement to extend our contract so that we didn’t hurt the businesses, so that we didn’t hurt the people," said Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 760 president Mandi Poss.

“We were on the street when people were staying home. We were going door to door. We were checking on the grandmas the grandpas, our parents out there. We were working hard for them.

“Now, when we come to a contract, we expected that there would be a negotiation, that we would be able to catch up from everything we lost during that pandemic.”

As mediated talks continue, Poss wants to see a negotiated, not a legislated, end to the labour dispute. The people who rely on Canada Post are just hoping it ends before they lose even more money.



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