Winnipeg small business owners take delivery into their own hands as Canada Post strike drags on
Dave Hanson, founder of the Sage Garden Greenhouses, is delivering his customers’ orders by hand, bundling packages and dropping them door-by-door ahead of the holidays.
Orders from the small business would normally be shipped to customers via Canada Post. However, the strike by more than 55,000 employees at the Crown corporation has forced Hanson and other Winnipeg shops to find alternatives so customers can get their orders on time.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” Hanson said. “To go and personally deliver, it’s a joy, it was a pleasure. It’s something we’ll continue to do, but it certainly isn’t a cost-effective solution for delivery.”
Hanson has hand-delivered around 30 Christmas package orders in the last few weeks, going to “every corner in the city” on three delivery drives.
Before the holidays, Hanson normally anticipates having close to 100 packages sent out to customers via mail.
“There’s a 70 per cent difference there,” he said, a significant gap in revenue at a key time of the year for sales.
“It just reflected in people’s uncertainty about what’s going to happen if they hit add to cart and check out, and then it ends up in the mail stream.”
Hand delivery has also been a “costly endeavour” overall, taking hours away from other aspects of running the business, Hanson said.
However, dropping off the orders is one of the few alternatives he has left to make sure it gets done effectively.
The service offered by other couriers has been overwhelmed since the start of the strike, and some of them don’t offer letter delivery, an “affordable” mail alternative for small businesses, Hanson said.
“When a key player like Canada Post is out of commission for a certain amount of time … there’s lots of ripples,” he said.
Eric Heatherington, co-owner of Bear Face General Store, a local art store on Osborne Street, said managing shipments and deliveries during the strike hasn’t been easy.
Even with the majority of purchases done in-store, Heatherington said the business decided to start delivering some of their orders within the city on Friday.
“[It’s] just like necessity … obviously the holiday season is big for sales in general,” he said.
Larger orders are being handed out by some employees while a number of customers who would get packages shipped are picking them up at the store.
“We’ll do this for as long as it happens,” Heatherington said.
“I am personally more concerned with the workers at the end of the day … It doesn’t matter if it inconveniences us at the end of the day because for those people, the stakes are higher, and it matters a lot more.”
Dispute sent to Industrial Relations Board
On Friday, Canada’s Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon sent the dispute between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers to the Canada Industrial Relations Board.
MacKinnon said if the board, an independent entity, determines negotiations between the parties are at an impasse, it has been directed to order striking members back to work under the existing collective agreement until May 22, 2025.
“I am making this decision to protect the interests of all Canadians,” MacKinnon said. “It is not a decision I take lightly, but in this situation, it is the right one.”
Loren Remillard, president of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, said not resolving the strike swiftly can affect the relationship businesses have with the Crown corporation, with trust and reliability being “eroded to the point it is not fixable.”
The window for a resolution is too narrow to have a “major positive impact on the holiday shopping season,” Remillard said.
“It’s been very frustrating for the business community as it works so diligently to recover from a pandemic that saw so many shuttered and struggling still. But we remain hopeful.”
WATCH | As postal strike continues, Winnipeg businesses take delivery into their own hands:
With no end in sight to the strike by Canada Post workers, a pair of Winnipeg businesses have decided to do their own deliveries.
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