Rural mail carriers say Canada Post overreacted by closing mailboxes

A union representative for rural mail carriers says Canada Post overreacted by suspending service to thousands of country mailboxes because of health and safety issues.

Heather Manuel, health and safety representative for rural and suburban mail carriers in the Fredericton area, said Wednesday rural route drivers feel they are being unfairly blamed by residents who are furious about the sudden loss of home delivery.

Over 1,000 Canada Post customers in rural areas surrounding Fredericton have had home delivery suspended because their mailboxes were deemed unsafe.

Thousands of mailboxes elsewhere in Canada are now off limits as Canada Post reviews its entire rural mail delivery system.

“Seventy-five per cent of these boxes could have been fixed on day one simply by moving them back six inches from the roadway,” Manuel said of affected mailboxes in the Fredericton area.

“A lot of the problem is not enough shoulder on the roadway.”

Manuel said that when rural drivers offered to resume delivery to the mailboxes because people were so upset, Canada Post supervisors threatened them with suspensions.

The national corporation is reviewing its rural delivery system across Canada because some carriers have complained of unsafe road conditions and health problems caused by reaching repetitively into boxes.

Avril Vollenhoven, spokeswoman for Canada Post, said Canada Post is not overreacting by responding to safety concerns raised by its employees.

“Canada Post would be in a difficult legal position if we did not respond,” she said.

Manuel said strong opposition to Canada Post’s actions may have foiled a “master plan” to end individual rural delivery in favour of much less costly community mailboxes.

She said a major concern of rural deliverers was repetitive stress injuries caused by reaching into boxes, but Canada Post fixed that problem by paying for helpers in the cars.

However, Vollenhoven said the use of a second person in a rural delivery vehicle was only a temporary solution.