Small businesses, residents brace for another potential postal strike

Thousands of postal workers could walk off the job this week. CTV London's Bryan Bicknell has more on how residents and businesses could be impacted.

Once again, small businesses in London and across Canada find themselves bracing for another potential disruption to postal service. Unionized Canada Post workers could walk off the job Friday after presenting a strike notice to Canada Post.

It would be the second strike by postal workers in six months.

At Music City Canada on Charterhouse Crescent in London, proprietor Ryan Schroeyens said he learned his lesson the last time there was a strike.

“We’ve moved to different carriers ... UPS, Purolator, other carriers that can get to some of the areas,” said Schroeyens.

Last year, a 32-day strike ahead of the holiday season left the e-commerce and retail music business with big losses.

“Tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. There’s really no way to know, right. Because people that obviously figured it out that they couldn’t get stuff shipped to them just didn’t buy. So, there’s really know way to measure the total extent of the loss,” Schroeyens explained.

According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, last year’s strike cost small companies more than $1 billion in lost revenue and sales.

If a strike does take place, any new mail or parcels will not be accepted until it’s all over. And anything stuck in the system would also have to wait.

“I rely on that post to give me my bills so I can go to the bank and pay them. When the post office doesn’t do that, it has a tremendous impact, I would think on almost all older people,” said one senior citizen CTV News spoke with at a south London shopping plaza.

Canada Post says social assistance cheques and live animals are the two exceptions during the strike, with delivery of both continuing, but no new live animals would be accepted.