“Canada Post union workers to begin rotating nationwide strikes Monday morning https://a.msn.com/r/2/BBOGE1D?m=en-ca&referrerID=InAppShare”

I’m annoyed. I knew it was possible for the government-sponsored monopolies at Canada Post to upset my daily routine. I ignored that possibility when I placed an on-line order for a specialty household product I’ll need by month-end.

So now, the very next day following the placing of my order (the vendor offers free shipping by expedited Canada Post shipment) I read (see link above) that the disgruntled union is ordering “rotating strikes.”

This means my order may be delayed and I won’t receive it in time for next weekend, when I have planned to clean the hard-water deposits from my espresso machine.

Trivial stuff, I know, when counterpoised against the heady issues of ” . . . health and safety, gender equality and good, full-time middle-class jobs . . ..”

I guess where the whole thing comes apart for me is that here are two government-sponsored monopolies opposing each other in the pit of practically unlimited dollars confiscated from taxpayers and sloshing around for the taking.

Canada Post, the crown corporation, enjoys a monopoly. Nobody else is allowed to deliver letters or bulk mail by order of law. On the other side of the dispute is the union of postal workers, who enjoy a peculiar monopoly of their own; no other individuals may perform their work without being members of the union, a status also enforced by order of law.

Then there are the issues, which on their own provide just cause for annoyance at the least. Let’s see, “health and safety” is a kind of “sugar-pie” issue that nobody can argue against. I’m all for the health and safety of workers regardless of their peculiar employment circumstances. Exactly what are the concerns of postal workers, the majority of whom are only stressed by repetitive sorting of letters weighing less than an ounce, or carrying bags of same that cumulatively could weigh more than a bag of groceries? Perhaps this stress is outweighed by the healthy walking letter-carriers do in making their appointed rounds.

What about “gender equality?” This term as used here must be some kind of package deal. On the face of it, genders are only equal before the law and morality. It means equality of opportunity and not of outcome. In absolute terms, gender is a distinction with a difference. So I’ll leave it to union representatives to explain why this is an issue so dire as to withdraw their members from active employment, rotating or otherwise.

Finally, we have “good, full-time middle-class jobs” as a key point of disagreement. Now I know that a government-sponsored monopoly employer, which has never demonstrated much regard for the proverbial “bottom-line” has probably been rather accommodating in regard to “job-creation” when it comes to allocating resources. Who has not wondered how a clerk who is paid more in wages and benefits than the average Canadian unskilled worker can be financially justified at a few dollars per transaction, when they, the taxpayers, wait on-line for service from the same, often surly clerk?

Is that what “good, full-time middle-class jobs” means to the union? By what right does this monopoly provide a superior standard of living to unskilled workers to what they might obtain in free markets without the benefit of a government enforced monopoly?

Edward’s Post