I doubt that the private sector would be very keen on absorbing the ex-posties. Having witnessed the speed of the retail counter workers and spoken to a few carriers, I think they would be stunned by having to work in a "real world" environment. And self employment would probably kill them.
There are a lot of parallels with the CBC and Canada Post both of which are essentially redundant organizations. Both come with a workforce carrying ideological and attitudinal baggage that one wouldn't want to inflict on a legitimate business. Both organizations are beyond reform. Both being tentacles of leviathan, shutting them both down after an attempt at selling them off to appear less cruel would be my answer. Proceeds from assets can go towards severance and pensions. Email and existing couriers for parcels can pick up the slack.
Mr. C. somewhere about the middle, you start a paragraph with "Whoever or whatever is to blame ..." Well, we all have someone to blame, be it stupid governments who kept kicking the can down the road, historically rotten management, greedy unions, or whomsoever any individual observer wishes to blame.
But, IT DOESN'T MATTER who is to blame. The only questions are whether Canada will keep some form of postal service and, ever so particularly, who the Hell is going to pay for the mess that results? Especially the last one. The answer to the last one is the same as always: the taxpayer but remember, the price will be paid over and over and over for decades of pensions.
As ways of dealing with the problem you offer five ideas:
- transfer of workers to the private sector; no private company would touch the CP workers given their (questionable, to be generous) productivity and (oh, boy, this one!!!) the existing union contracts and the particular union representation.
- selling of capital and IP; the capital - land and buildings, particularly - is very saleable; the IP I expect should garner, oh, say about $1.95 as all competitors already have highly efficient IP.
- creating government subsidized organizations ... ; that is what is there now! This will probably happen but is just kicking that damned can again.
- working with commercial customers; yup! I can see that a "successful" CP will be able to entice all sorts of customers to not run to UPS.
- optimizing planning and resources for employees; that is another phrasing for getting life pensions from the feds. I have problems here ....
One point that must be done that isn't noted is to sell Purolator Courier, of which CP owns 91%. The financial statements of CP say that Purolator make profit before tax of 293,000,000, so one could expect a pretty good price for that sale.
Pretty well all else is dross.
Shut the sucker down, find a way to deal with the pensions (ug!) and put the people of Canada out of our misery.
I commend you for daring to take on this topic which all Canadians should absolutely fear.
Actually, unlike CBC, I'm not sure that Canada Post is funded or subsidized by the government. As far as I can see, the only exposure taxpayers have to the corporation right now is the CP debt that the government holds. The trick will be to keep it that way and not fall into the bail out pit.
I THINK you are correct but, as with all things government, up is also down, black is also white.
The exposure to taxpayers will come in a couple of ways, explicit and implicit. Explicit exposure will arise from CP debt owed to the feds that is ultimately written off; any loan guarantees to third party lenders (I haven't bothered to chase down the disclosures in the financial statement notes to see what, if anything, they say in this regard; and any statutory obligations: say, environmental liabilities in, oh, a CP maintenance facility; and so forth.
Implicit liabilities are the real kicker, at least to me. I absolutely expect third party lenders would argue that the government OWES them due to winks and nods, even if there is nothing specific on paper (and I think that a court ruling would be interesting). I further think that the real issue is going to be employees. Under federal and various provincial laws some liabilities, if unpaid, simply are transferred in whole to the directors - have the directors been indemnified by the feds? But, but, but, do you really think that CUPW is likely to allow the feds to close down CP without massive, massive, massive assumption by the public of CP pensions; health and similar benefits; termination pay and the like. And, you can be certain that as soon as one creditor is successful that all creditors will be at the window with hand out.
All in all, I quite expect that you are right to project an imminent (whatever time frame that might be) demise of CP. I further expect that EVERY government will kick the decision down the road for continuous four year periods (election cycles, don'tcha know?) so that it is ALWAYS the NEXT guys who have to deal with the issue.
Snail mail should only be delivered one day a week.
I doubt that the private sector would be very keen on absorbing the ex-posties. Having witnessed the speed of the retail counter workers and spoken to a few carriers, I think they would be stunned by having to work in a "real world" environment. And self employment would probably kill them.
but oh, that public sector defined benefit pension....
There are a lot of parallels with the CBC and Canada Post both of which are essentially redundant organizations. Both come with a workforce carrying ideological and attitudinal baggage that one wouldn't want to inflict on a legitimate business. Both organizations are beyond reform. Both being tentacles of leviathan, shutting them both down after an attempt at selling them off to appear less cruel would be my answer. Proceeds from assets can go towards severance and pensions. Email and existing couriers for parcels can pick up the slack.
Mr. C. somewhere about the middle, you start a paragraph with "Whoever or whatever is to blame ..." Well, we all have someone to blame, be it stupid governments who kept kicking the can down the road, historically rotten management, greedy unions, or whomsoever any individual observer wishes to blame.
But, IT DOESN'T MATTER who is to blame. The only questions are whether Canada will keep some form of postal service and, ever so particularly, who the Hell is going to pay for the mess that results? Especially the last one. The answer to the last one is the same as always: the taxpayer but remember, the price will be paid over and over and over for decades of pensions.
As ways of dealing with the problem you offer five ideas:
- transfer of workers to the private sector; no private company would touch the CP workers given their (questionable, to be generous) productivity and (oh, boy, this one!!!) the existing union contracts and the particular union representation.
- selling of capital and IP; the capital - land and buildings, particularly - is very saleable; the IP I expect should garner, oh, say about $1.95 as all competitors already have highly efficient IP.
- creating government subsidized organizations ... ; that is what is there now! This will probably happen but is just kicking that damned can again.
- working with commercial customers; yup! I can see that a "successful" CP will be able to entice all sorts of customers to not run to UPS.
- optimizing planning and resources for employees; that is another phrasing for getting life pensions from the feds. I have problems here ....
One point that must be done that isn't noted is to sell Purolator Courier, of which CP owns 91%. The financial statements of CP say that Purolator make profit before tax of 293,000,000, so one could expect a pretty good price for that sale.
Pretty well all else is dross.
Shut the sucker down, find a way to deal with the pensions (ug!) and put the people of Canada out of our misery.
I commend you for daring to take on this topic which all Canadians should absolutely fear.
Actually, unlike CBC, I'm not sure that Canada Post is funded or subsidized by the government. As far as I can see, the only exposure taxpayers have to the corporation right now is the CP debt that the government holds. The trick will be to keep it that way and not fall into the bail out pit.
I THINK you are correct but, as with all things government, up is also down, black is also white.
The exposure to taxpayers will come in a couple of ways, explicit and implicit. Explicit exposure will arise from CP debt owed to the feds that is ultimately written off; any loan guarantees to third party lenders (I haven't bothered to chase down the disclosures in the financial statement notes to see what, if anything, they say in this regard; and any statutory obligations: say, environmental liabilities in, oh, a CP maintenance facility; and so forth.
Implicit liabilities are the real kicker, at least to me. I absolutely expect third party lenders would argue that the government OWES them due to winks and nods, even if there is nothing specific on paper (and I think that a court ruling would be interesting). I further think that the real issue is going to be employees. Under federal and various provincial laws some liabilities, if unpaid, simply are transferred in whole to the directors - have the directors been indemnified by the feds? But, but, but, do you really think that CUPW is likely to allow the feds to close down CP without massive, massive, massive assumption by the public of CP pensions; health and similar benefits; termination pay and the like. And, you can be certain that as soon as one creditor is successful that all creditors will be at the window with hand out.
All in all, I quite expect that you are right to project an imminent (whatever time frame that might be) demise of CP. I further expect that EVERY government will kick the decision down the road for continuous four year periods (election cycles, don'tcha know?) so that it is ALWAYS the NEXT guys who have to deal with the issue.