Canada Post: Winners and Losers

Canada Post's strike/lockout is about to end...who won? who lost?

Losers

NDP

The NDP come off looking like a fringe party who will support big labor to the death...except when they cave for no apparent reason.

I'd love to be in on the strategy meeting where the NDP said "let's stall the legislation as long as we can...up until the amendment phase when we'll let everything pass in quick votes and show that the filibustering we just did had no real impact other than to delay the mail that the public wants...and show we are more concerned with supporting a massively unpopular position than being a mainstream political party" (in my head they said that in a run on sentence)

I am calling it right now. The NDP will lose big next election. The gains in Quebec will largely disappear and they will win 40-65 seats.

The simple reality is that the filibuster accomplished nothing other than pissing off voters who overwhelmingly wanted the strike to end. While I am not saying that government should simply kow tow to the majority, I am not sure what the NDP thought they would accomplish by a 58 hour filibuster followed by a quick cave in.

Canada Post (workers)

"You have to know when to hold them...."...MASSIVE tactical error on the part of the CUPW...mix one part 20% fewer parcels/letters over five years...a long recession...public sick and tired of public sector unions with gold plated pensions and benefits that don't exist in the private sector...an anti-labor conservative majority government fresh into a new term...and you decide to go on rotating strikes?

This was the time to deal. It was the time to say "hey, we get it's a rough economic time and we'll do a deal for the benefit of the country"...instead they, much like George Pickett, decided to fight a stupid and un-winnable battle...and they lost big.

Canada Post (the business)

Management will get the deal they wanted...but the reality is that Canada Post can only slide further into irrelevancy as a result of the work stoppage...it wouldn't surprise me if Canada Post is privatized within five years and becomes much smaller/leaner.

How many people signed up for online billing last week?

Winners

Conservative party

A brilliant master stroke of maneuvering. On one hand they managed to take the side of the populist opinion (which is anti-union at the moment) and on the other they managed to deftly push the NDP into a corner.

The NDP had a choice. Back the conservatives and betray the party's traditional political base OR filibuster and piss of the majority of Canadians who just want their mail.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Harper put in the (controversial) lower than previously offered wage deal just to put the NDP in a can't win proposition.

There was no way for the NDP to come out of this with a win...the liberals, bloc and Greens don't matter (at the moment)...huge win for the Tories

The public

They get their mail back and likely with a cheaper deal