health and safety Archives - Canada's Modern Post

An examination of Canada Post’s present sick-leave program, its role in the postal culture, the problem of the lack of data, its weaknesses, and what initial step is required to make it properly work.

Reader note: this article was written when the old contract was still in effect and no longer applies to the present sick-leave program at Canada Post. It should be read for historical reasons only, not for present-day application.

There are no official documents that detail the annual cost, except unsubstantiated accounts that Moya Greene, ex-ceo of Canada Post has claimed that it costs $300 million annually.(1) How she arrived at this figure is unknown.

Judging by Canada Post’s insistence to change this program at the bargaining table, whatever the real amount is, must be significant.

It is also not known what the specific problems of the program are at this time. There is no public statistical breakdowns available for short or long-term absences, types of sickness, absence or injuries. Since there are no official documents, it is difficult to make a comparison to a similar occupation to see if Canada Post ranks higher or lower.

Neither does it contain information on whether the supposed $300 million are costs created for that year only, or portions are the cumulative continued costs from injuries or disabilities from prior years. This is a big unanswered question.

Over 40,000 employees of Canada Post are between the ages of 40-59 and the age bracket between 50-59 is the single largest group of workers.(2) Many of these employees have been doing physical duties throughout their careers. It is inevitable that injuries are going to occur and progressively continue to be aggravated or get worse over time.

It would appear that sick leave costs will be significantly rising because of the age factor and Canada Post is attempting to be financially pro-active in dealing with this.

The Human Resources and Skills Development Canada has statistics on the rate of injuries at Canada Post. It was 7.42 percent per 100 persons in 2007. It does not break down the difference between inside, outside or office workers at the Post Office nor for how long the injury lasted or why. It could be one day, or 1 year. The only other industry with a higher rate is being a longshoreman.(3)

The United States Postal System had an injury rate of 5.1 per 100 during this same 2007 period.(4)

The United States Postal System has a slightly less percentage of injury rates, but one must keep in mind the geographic area of the United States varies much more than our northern Canadian climate. The environmental variables are different as well as their work systems.

It is difficult to compare Canada Post’s injury rate with other couriers, and especially flyer delivery companies. These are transitory positions and rarely are employees able to continue economically with these jobs at middle age. Therefore it cannot be compared for injury rates.

32% of all sick-leave costs at Canada Post are mental health related.(5) Nobody officially has given a reason why, nor have any studies provided any clues on what factors may be contributing to this total at Canada Post.

Is this above the corporate norm in Canada? Don Drummond in a speech for the Psychology Foundation of Canada pegs mental health issues costing as much as 12 percent of a company’s payroll.(6) If this statistic holds true, Canada Post is well under the industry average. However, Canada Post figures that their percentage of mental illness is close to the business norm in Canada.(7)

But who are the most likely to claim mental health issues at Canada Post? Is it letter carriers? Inside workers? Is it more common with night-shift? None of these questions have been effectually documented nor has there been any effort from either the Unions or Management to rectify any contributing work factors to this health problem.

What is known is that the overall health and quality of life of the typical night-shift worker is significantly less than that of the letter-carrier. Letter carriers typically work days, Monday to Friday, whereas night-shift workers work 8 hours somewhere between 10 pm and 8 am, depending on location. These workers do not consistently have two set days off, sometimes they are broken into one day pieces throughout the week.

With the changes to new workflow patterns and infrastructure, it may take over 20 years before a night-shift worker can get a day position.

Night shift is most likely where the majority of mental health issues are being produced

One would think with the Postal Transformation underway, this would be one of the best opportunities to address such an issue with more day jobs and rotating shifts.

Mental Health is the cause of choice for Canada Post and established in October 2007, The Canada Post Foundation for Mental Health. Janie Randolph, Director of Canada Post’s cause of choice, has stated that, “two of the top five prescription drugs taken by its employees are for depression and anxiety. “Canada Post has productivity issues, we have absenteeism issues, and mental health–related pharmaceuticals are among the highest costs in our benefits program.”(8)

The Canada Post culture has embraced sick-leave for two other reasons. These reasons are a result of Canada Post not having an effective and systematic conflict resolution policy. Whether it is between employees themselves, manager to employee or manager to manager, their are no effectual conflict resolution steps in place.

In the present system one typically has to make a human rights complaint to an officer of the corporation for investigation which may take days, or months before any conclusion, if any at all, is made. Or if in case of a conflict between a management representative and employee, filing a grievance. This can take years to process. These systems are too large and bulky for most inter-personal conflicts which are seldom major in nature but the everyday trivial problems of human co-existence.

Instead the sick-leave policy is used as an alternative. One way an employee typically expresses his frustration in unresolved conflict is to take one or more days of sick-leave as a time-out. Instead of being angry or fighting, the person stays home until the anger has abated. This unofficial policy has saved many confrontations.

There are also protest sick-leave days. This is used by some employees who feel forced to change or do new duties without any concern by the management to their physical or mental well-being. When experienced workers are missing, it often takes 1.5 to 2 newer workers to do their job. Often management backs off after this protest and treat workers who do this with a little bit more care and concern, not so rude and abrupt as before. This is not always the case, often protest sick-leave results in no change towards the employee, but the employee feels less frustrated and has a channel to vent his or her frustrations.

If there is no change in the conflict resolution protocol and the sick-leave is amended so that protest and cool-down days are removed, there will be a significant increase in physical violence within Canada Post.

Last of all there is simply abuse of sick-leave days. The Collective Agreement is designed with the moral understanding that everyone wants to work hard and contribute to the best of their ability. When this is not done, the Agreement can easily be abused because there are no safeguards against people who, for whatever reason, don’t want to work. The majority of workers follow the moral law of the agreement, but a few, which is not unlike any other corporate institution, take advantage of this. The big difference between Canada Post and any other institution is that co-workers are prohibited from safeguarding the collective agreement from this type of abuse. Any confrontation towards a fellow employee on the perceived misuse of sick-leave can constitute harassment and a human rights complaint can be filed. Therefore this type of abuse is left unchecked. Most employees know the irreparable harm this causes within the corporate morale, and visually see how managers have to turn their back on such behaviour and cannot discipline.

There has to be a mutually agreed mechanism put into place where it cannot so easily be taken advantage of.

The creation of a clear-cut and transparent document on the nature, type and duration of sick leave would go a long way in developing a proper strategy for managing this area. It would foster a positive dialogue between the corporation and its employees and could ultimately lead to solutions that both parties could be happy with.

(1) It has flowed around the internet and in a number of articles, such as, http://www.workink.com/articles.php?prID=11146&pgID=11159&art=386 but these articles do not name the source and therefore cannot be completely construed as accurate but it is the only source available so far.
(2) Canada Post Pension Plan 2010 Annual Report. Pg. 7
(3) http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/labour/publications/health_safety/pdf/oiacfje.pdf
(4) http://www.usps.com/strategicplanning/cs07/chpt3_008.htm
(5) http://www.ontario.cmha.ca/network_story.asp?cID=117085
(6) http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2009/11/25/canada-economy-mental-health-cost.html
(7) http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/aboutus/news/pr/2007/2007_oct_news_cause.jsf
(8) http://www.ontario.cmha.ca/network_story.asp?cID=117085

These are some important questions that come to mind in the process of modernizing Canada Post. There was no public or employee input involved in the decision-making. These are vital questions that should have been publicly addressed before implementation but still remain unanswered.

Why is Canada Post spending so much money on new buildings and infrastructure when mail volumes are declining? If Canada Post was publicly traded, would investors infuse 2 billion dollars for a sales base forecasted on declining volumes or would they just want management to “sharpen the saw” with the least capital possible?
Can the Post Office continue to rely on rate increases to cover costs?
Why should Canada Post bear the cost of Company provided vehicles when historically employees provided their own? In Winnipeg, 70% of the traditional letter carriers use private vehicles, 5% public transit, 23% taxi and 2% walking directly from station to destination. Of the private vehicles 90% do not benefit from Canada Post subsidies of any kind. The costs are all borne by the carrier. In the new modern Post scenario, media outlets confer the purchase of 5000 additional vehicles on top of replacing a fleet of 6000. If the 5000 figure is correct, and this is to replace the private vehicles. The new cost adds 40 million of annual expenditures to Canada Post’s bottom line that never existed before. (27 million a year in lease payments, plus 13 million in additional annual fuel costs, approximately 7.5 million in annual insurance costs, and 2.5 million in annual maintenance)
Is this a good business decision?
Why use expensive air transport when trucking will suffice? USPS is trying to move as much delivery goods to surface transport as opposed to air to cut down on costs. Will Canada Post follow suit, or is moving nearer to the Airport an indication of the opposite strategy? One personal study concludes that air transport is 3x higher than surface transportation. How much would Canada Post save if the majority of goods were shipped by surface rather than by air? (It has been proven that the majority of urban centres can meet time objectives by surface).
Wouldn’t it have been much cheaper to build a facility away from the airport with more emphasis on trucking logistics?
Why such a big cost of transformation with so little return? The 2007 annual report demonstrates the costs are being shifted from labour to infrastructure with little financial change. Suggestions have been made that staffing is to be reduced by 10%. This brings in an annual savings of $350 million dollars. The 2007 Canada Post annual report has stated that total debt obligations will amount to $315 million a year in yearly lease obligations in five years plus other obligations that could push it over 350 million a year. If this is correct, whatever costs associated with the upgrades and reductions in staffing leaves the financial picture unchanged.
Why couldn’t the corporation just slow down the roll-out and use its available yearly profits to fund it?
Why didn’t the corporation first test this plan in a controlled area of study and then implement a national strategy when all the serious problems had been ironed out?
Should Canada Post be involved in ancillary companies such as InnovaPost, or should they shed non-core items and focus more clearly on the direct company mission?
When will Canada Post issue annual reports that comply with the Ontario Securities Commission standards?
Proposed savings from better health initiatives #1. How can letter carriers spending an extra 1.5 hours walking/delivering per day than the traditional model be construed as a health and safety solution? Wouldn’t extra time walking increase the exposure to injury? Shouldn’t the new model be decreasing the amount a letter carrier should be walking?
Proposed savings from better health initiatives #2. Night shift work. It has been noted that mental health issues, productivity and absenteeism have to be addressed in order to control and improve costs. Much of this can be directly correlated to long-term evening and especially night shift work with its physical and social consequences. Productivity could likely be increased by 30%, absenteeism reduced by at least 50%, and would effect long term mental illness leave by a large percentage. There would be a decrease in workplace violence as well if night shift work could be reduced to a minimum. It is one of the most long-term expensive health problems faced by Canada Post. Why isn’t there even a remote discussion on a solution to the problems associated with evening and night shifts? The productivity improvements alone from improving work hours may even be more profitable than installing new equipment.
How much does the universal Government mandate of sending mail from everywhere to anywhere cost Canada Post:

How much does Canada Post lose in sending mail to non-urban centres?
Does Canada Post have a hope of ever breaking even with these points?
Can increasing profits through innovation and better work practices from urban centres ever cover the losses of sending mail to non-urban centres? Is there a point with fuel costs that it will be impossible for urban centres to subsidize costs of delivery to non-urban centres?
How much profit did the urban centres actually make in 2011 to compensate for the losses accrued from the non-urban centres?
Do the Government subsidies for Northern and remote towns/villages cover the costs of delivery? If not, how much does Canada Post lose on this every year?
How much money does Canada Post lose from Fed Ex, UPS, etc. piggybacking Canada Post in delivery to non-urban centres every year?
How much does it cost Canada Post to deliver Parliament mail, admail and to Canadian military establishments such as Afghanistan every year?
Do the Government subsidies adequately cover the cost of delivery for magazines and publications? If not, how much does Canada Post lose on this every year?
Canadian Library parcel delivery service. Do the Government subsidies adequately cover the delivery cost for these? If not, how much does Canada Post lose on this every year?
Since these items are all acts of legislation and Canada Post has no control over these variables, shouldn’t non-urban centre costs be listed separately in the annual report as fixed expenses/liabilities?
Shouldn’t the profitable and the forced non-profitable entities of Canada Post be separated for financial reporting purposes?

Still looking for answers…

Tag: health and safety

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