Canadian postal workers went on limited strike because Canada Post wanted to cut their retirement and wages. The situation escalated when Canada Post locked out all urban postal workers, in effect laying off 48,000 employees.
Canada Post says they’ve been losing money and need to make drastic cuts in pay and benefits.
Here in the United States a similar situation is happening with the U.S. Postal Service. The USPS does not make money off taxpayers, they are solely funded by the postage they charge. The problem is that Congress controls the postage they are allowed to charge, and so far Congress has refused to allow postal rates to reflect the actual operating cost of the USPS. The result is that the USPS is losing millions and billions of dollars every year. (it’s almost as if Congress wants to put the USPS out of business)
So far thousands of U.S. postal workers have been bought out of their contracts, and even laid off. What can U.S. postal workers do? Nothing, because their employment contracts say that if they try to do anything, like go on strike, they automatically lose their job (no strike clause). So much for “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.