A profitable solution to the Canada Post Strike: No Admail

I have a simple solution to the Canada Post strike that will make Canada Post profitable again. Get rid of admail. Wait 'till I tell ye. For 20 years we've been listening to Corporate clowns tell us that Adamil is the future of Canada Post. Admail is good business. Admail is where the money is. Evidently it's not. The proof is in the pudding. The rapidly increasing annual deficit is the evidence that Admail is not where the money is. The cost of delivery is more than the revenue it brings in. Parcels are where the money is. Save Canada Post by ditching Admail. Here's why:

Back in the day, a letter carrier's route was based on incentive. If you hurried and finished early, you got paid for a full day. Consequently we'd find ways to make it faster. One way was to criss cross streets on light days. When I say light days I mean days when not every single call got lettermail. Kind of like everyday now. When lettermail was big and people were getting mail every day, bringing a flyer along with that mail was worth it. Now when so many houses don't get mail delivery on a specific day, going to every house with flyers isn't worth the money.

Technically, each route is divided into three parts A,B and C. On A day you are supposed to go to every single point of call with flyers even if it didn't get mail. That's become more and more ridiculous as the number of calls increase and the mail volume decreases.

Being a letter carrier is a physically demanding job and every year it keeps getting worse because as the mail volume drops the letter carrier's routes get longer. The current CUPW president couldn't do the job and has never done that job so it's pretty hard for her to understand what they really need. The ideological agendas aren't it.

If we got rid of Admail and focused on parcels, documents and credit cards the routes could be longer but not so insanely physically demanding. No one wants those fliers anyways.

As for the USPS they have always had a different model and when you remember the days of Going Postal, that was not a better model. Many years ago, when I was a letter carrier and the system was based on incentive, a coworker had returned from visiting the US. He said he saw a US letter carrier delivering mail and he was really dawdling. He said to the guy wow, you mush have really cushy routes down here. The guy said not really. I get paid for 8 hours so it doesn't matter how fast I go. Theirs was not a system based on incentive.

The Union correctly pointed out that Canada Post delivers to rural areas where the couriers won't go because it's not profitable for them. So what does that mean? That means Canada Post has a complete monopoly on the rural market. If they change the way they do business there's no reason they can't make a profit. Canada Post Delivers.

UPS still makes a profit. FEDex still makes a profit. DHL and everyone else still make a profit. Why can't Canada Post? It's because of Admail. All these other couriers aren't going to every single point of call with flyers that nobody wants. Let's make Canada Post profitable again.

Times have changed. Remember how long it took to learn a route so you could line all the parcels up in the correct delivery sequence. Now you have GPS maps and automatic sequencing to tell you which parcel is next and how to get there. If Canada Post isn't using this mode of delivery for MSCs they need to. Amazon is. Part of the problem is Article 29 Technological Change.

The wording of the collective agreement makes innovation very difficult. That's why it's next to impossible for the company to evolve. There are two main differences between Costco and Canada Post. Costco treats their employees well, Canada Post does not.

Jim Sinegal was a true pioneer. When everyone else in the food industry was slashing wages and benefits he said treat your employees well. That means rewarding them but also listening to them. The other way Costco is different from Canada Post is that Costco is constantly innovating. Costco is always trying to think up new ways to make the business run more efficiently.

Costco can pay their employees a fair wage because their employees are productive. That's because the company is organized. Canada Post used to be like that 20 years ago. If they set Admail aside and built a new model based on parcels and documents they would be far more efficient, proficient and profitable. Admail are the sandbags holding them back.

Developing the Postal bank would be another huge innovation. I saw something about them offering loans. Think about this. Payday loan companies are gouging workers. If Canada Post offered Payday loans at 10% instead of 29.9% they'd under cut the competitors and do a huge amount of business. The Costco model succeeds because it deals in volume. They make a small mark up but do a huge amount of volume. They can do a huge amount of volume because they're organized. Canada Post can do it too. Cut the Admail sandbags and fly.