Canada Post Strike

[chemgear]

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/06/10/t...ostal-workers/

While the rotating strike by workers at Canada Post has proven to be a hardship for many Canadian businesses, it is also shining necessary light on the massive disparity between postal employees and workers in the private sector. Outside of bureaucrats in France, it is hard to imagine a more coddled, out-of-touch and overcompensated group than postal workers.

One example of how large and untenable this gap has become can be found in Statistics Canada’s recent observation that public sector employees now constitute a majority of all pension plan participants, despite being outnumbered more than three to one in the workforce. This suggests two types of retirement in the future: one of carefree luxury for public sector employees, and one of reduced expectations for everyone else. A similar dichotomy is at work with Ontario’s practice of paying a bonus to every corrections staffer who takes fewer than 23 sick days per year.

A postal strike seems as good a time as any to start imposing a new sense of reality on the public sector.

[CaptainCrunch]

man If I took 23 sick days off per year, there'd be some serious questions.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

man If I took 23 sick days off per year, there'd be some serious questions.

I'm assuming you also don't work in a prison and that the stress of your job isn't nearly as high as that of people looking after violent inmates who are living in close quarters in which it is well known that rates of illness are significantly higher.

I am actually impressed with someone who has built up 402 days of sick leave as it says in the Macleans article, if it is true that they get 15 days of sick leave a year and it builds up, that means that the employee has worked every single day in a physically demanding job for the past 27 years without taking a single sick day.

People will take the sick time either way - if someone knows they can't bank it for future years then I am sure there will be more people taking sick days for less urgent reasons. There is no motivation to not use those sick days otherwise other than the good of their hearts.

[Dion]

Canada Post says its latest offer includes annual wage increases that, for current employees, would bring the top wage rate to $26 an hour, job security, no changes to a defined-benefit pension plan, medical benefits and “generous” vacation leave that tops out at seven weeks per year.

Future hires would get a starting wage of $19 an hour, rising to a maximum $26 an hour, up to six weeks vacation and a defined benefit pension by age 60.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/can...MW_latest_news

7 freaking weeks of vacation time and $26 to deliver mail??? Are you kidding me!

Let em rot on the picket line! Better yet, a movement to privatization couldn't come soon enough. The union is out of touch with reality!

7 freaking weeks of vacation time and $26 to deliver mail???

[Dion]

People will take the sick time either way - if someone knows they can't bank it for future years then I am sure there will be more people taking sick days for less urgent reasons. There is no motivation to not use those sick days otherwise other than the good of their hearts.

Not true. That sick time kicks in when someone goes on long term disability. It helps to coverage the difference between what long term pays and what his or her wages were.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by Dion

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/can...MW_latest_news

7 freaking weeks of vacation time and $26 to deliver mail??? Are you kidding me!

Let em rot on the picket line! Better yet, a movement to privatization couldn't come soon enough. The union is out of touch with reality!

7 freaking weeks of vacation time and $26 to deliver mail???

$26/hour is good but that isn't a great top end earning potential. Plus I am going to guess that you wouldn't be able to do the job that they do. I know a bunch of them and many of them have to walk roughly 15 km a day, 5 days a week... and that is while carrying a significant weight the entire time. Honestly, do you think that you would be able to do the job? Would you want to do the job for $19/hour? I am thinking it would be pretty simple to find a decent job that was much less physical that paid roughly the same.

Maybe I am just out of touch with reality but topping out at $26/hour doesn't seem like a great gig to me.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by Dion

Not true. That sick time kicks in when someone goes on long term disability. It helps to coverage the difference between what long term pays and what his or her wages were.

But what if someone can't bank sick time, where is the motivation to not use their sick time rather than seeing it not accumulate over time?

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

$26/hour is good but that isn't a great top end earning potential. Plus I am going to guess that you wouldn't be able to do the job that they do. I know a bunch of them and many of them have to walk roughly 15 km a day, 5 days a week... and that is while carrying a significant weight the entire time. Honestly, do you think that you would be able to do the job? Would you want to do the job for $19/hour? I am thinking it would be pretty simple to find a decent job that was much less physical that paid roughly the same.

Maybe I am just out of touch with reality but topping out at $26/hour doesn't seem like a great gig to me.

For the amount education involved to do the job I think it's a great wage. Even better is the benefits package. You don't have to go to college or university to a postal worker.

Most workers don't get 7 paid weeks vacation per year nor do they get sick benefits. There's a cost to the employer to pay out those benefits which also must be factored into the wages they earn.

Yes it's a physicaly demanding job, but if you are in any kind of good shape I don't think it would be that hard.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

I'm assuming you also don't work in a prison and that the stress of your job isn't nearly as high as that of people looking after violent inmates who are living in close quarters in which it is well known that rates of illness are significantly higher.

I am actually impressed with someone who has built up 402 days of sick leave as it says in the Macleans article, if it is true that they get 15 days of sick leave a year and it builds up, that means that the employee has worked every single day in a physically demanding job for the past 27 years without taking a single sick day.

People will take the sick time either way - if someone knows they can't bank it for future years then I am sure there will be more people taking sick days for less urgent reasons. There is no motivation to not use those sick days otherwise other than the good of their hearts.

Don't give me that B.S. every job has a different type of stress, but for the most part pretty much all jobs have a high stress level.

You don't think that somebody in sales doesn't have stress for example? Knowing that every blown deal means that you lose income.

Or how about people that work in retail that can be incredibly stressful. People in road construction who work under the beating son all day?


Is working with prisoners stressful? Absolutely, but I contend that if the job creates that much stress that you need to take that much time off due to stress related illness then you should find something better suited to you.

It seems that its only civil servants that get to carry over sick days, you don't see it in the private sector all that often where people can carry over or bank sick days.

And as far as the person that went 10 years without taking a sick day, that's great and he should be applauded for it, but the expectation in the work place is if your not sick you work, so in essence he was living up to his end of the employment contract and an illustration of why he doesn't need banked sick days.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

It is easy to throw out numbers - how long does someone have to work in order to get 7 weeks vacation a year? If the salary starts at $19/hour how long does it take for someone to work up? There are a lot of well paying jobs you don't have to go to school for - it is relatively unskilled labour, but so is filling potholes and a million other jobs.

People who work on the rigs get paid a premium for their jobs, whereas english majors work in Chapters. Who has more education is a poor argument at best.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

$26/hour is good but that isn't a great top end earning potential. Plus I am going to guess that you wouldn't be able to do the job that they do. I know a bunch of them and many of them have to walk roughly 15 km a day, 5 days a week... and that is while carrying a significant weight the entire time. Honestly, do you think that you would be able to do the job? Would you want to do the job for $19/hour? I am thinking it would be pretty simple to find a decent job that was much less physical that paid roughly the same.

Maybe I am just out of touch with reality but topping out at $26/hour doesn't seem like a great gig to me.

$60,000 a year for what would be considered a medium intensity labor job is a exceptional deal.

when I did paving I got paid less and did heavier labor for more hours a day and the only thing that made the wage decent was the overtime.

When I was in the military, I can guarantee that I worked harder for less money.

Could I do the job your describing in my 40's . . . no, but I really don't think that postal carrier is designed with career in mind.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

It is easy to throw out numbers - how long does someone have to work in order to get 7 weeks vacation a year? If the salary starts at $19/hour how long does it take for someone to work up? There are a lot of well paying jobs you don't have to go to school for - it is relatively unskilled labour, but so is filling potholes and a million other jobs.

People who work on the rigs get paid a premium for their jobs, whereas english majors work in Chapters. Who has more education is a poor argument at best.

The people that work on the rigs work in amazingly tough environments, with terrible hours, they also for the most part are trained in a tough technical field with amazing potential for danger, so I don't see what they get paid as a comparison to a postal worker.

I get the point about walking long distances a day and carrying heavy weight, but I don't see that as high intensity labor.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

$60,000 a year for what would be considered a medium intensity labor job is a exceptional deal.

when I did paving I got paid less and did heavier labor for more hours a day and the only thing that made the wage decent was the overtime.

When I was in the military, I can guarantee that I worked harder for less money.

Could I do the job your describing in my 40's . . . no, but I really don't think that postal carrier is designed with career in mind.

At $26/hour which is where it tops out the maximum earning potential for a postal worker is $54,000 a year. You would have a hard time convincing me that was a great wage to receive as the maximum earning potential in any job.

That is lower than what I made when I started working on the rigs.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

It is easy to throw out numbers - how long does someone have to work in order to get 7 weeks vacation a year? If the salary starts at $19/hour how long does it take for someone to work up? There are a lot of well paying jobs you don't have to go to school for - it is relatively unskilled labour, but so is filling potholes and a million other jobs.

I spent 20 years working in a union enviroment so I have a good idea of what's going on behind the scenes.

Yet most of those people in unskilled labour are making a good wage because they belong to a union. Let the market place decide what they are worth and we'll see some reality to thier wages.

People who work on the rigs get paid a premium for their jobs, whereas english majors work in Chapters. Who has more education is a poor argument at best.

Rig pigs get paid the wages they do because the market places decides what they are worth through supply and demand. Just like the vast majority of jobs today that don't have a union holding the public hostage when they don't get what they want.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

At $26/hour which is where it tops out the maximum earning potential for a postal worker is $54,000 a year. You would have a hard time convincing me that was a great wage to receive as the maximum earning potential in any job.

That is lower than what I made when I started working on the rigs.

There's no comparison between what the guys work on the rig and what postal workers do.

And if your applying for a job and they tell you that the max earning is $54,000 per year and you decide to make a career out of it with that expectation then you really don't have a reason to complain later on that the max earning is not enough.

[Devils'Advocate]

#1) It TOPS OUT at 7 weeks. Most get absolutely nowhere near that. I think it tops out at 28 years of service and you can retire at 30.

#2) As for the pension thing, I am doing basically the same job as my brother (project manager for IT systems) and he is making far more than me in the private sector than I am working for the government. Every time I think about making the jump back to private industry, I think about two things: job security and the "golden handcuffs". While I make less than he does right now, he is socking the extra money away into RRSPs while I know I have a very good pension coming to me down the line. The macleans article seems to lump all government workers into the same category as "overpaid", and that may be true at the clerical or blue collar levels, but at the professional, white collar level most are there for the benefits, certainly not for the salary.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

I'm assuming you also don't work in a prison and that the stress of your job isn't nearly as high as that of people looking after violent inmates who are living in close quarters in which it is well known that rates of illness are significantly higher.

I bet the average Doctor doesn't have 23 sick days in a year. Playing life and death around sick people isn't exactly stress free.....

[4X4]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

#2) As for the pension thing, I am doing basically the same job as my brother (project manager for IT systems) and he is making far more than me in the private sector than I am working for the government. Every time I think about making the jump back to private industry, I think about two things: job security and the "golden handcuffs". While I make less than he does right now, he is socking the extra money away into RRSPs while I know I have a very good pension coming to me down the line. The macleans article seems to lump all government workers into the same category as "overpaid", and that may be true at the clerical or blue collar levels, but at the professional, white collar level most are there for the benefits, certainly not for the salary.

I guess that about sums it up. There are two types of people in the workforce. The ones that prefer to take risks for the potential to earn more, and the ones that want to play it safe and earn less with more guarantees.

[HPLovecraft]

$54,000 per year is pretty good for something that doesn't require any college or university education. Tack on the extremely good benefits package and flexible vacation package, and you have a pretty sweet job, if you ask me.

[wooohooo]

Originally Posted by WilsonFourTwo

I bet the average Doctor doesn't have 23 sick days in a year. Playing life and death around sick people isn't exactly stress free.....

Well depending on the Doctor... and specialty they can have a hell alot more but most of them are so into their work anyways it doesn't matter. But they are more than compensated for the work they do.