Today CUPW members held a funeral outside of McDermot Depot depot as Canada Post implemented SSD (Separate Sort & Delivery) inside. SSD will eliminate jobs, create more work on the street for letter carriers. Click here to read the CBC news article.

Traditionally, Letter Carriers sort and prepare their own mail, then they go out and deliver it. Under the SSD system, a “Router” will spend all day inside and sort the mail for several routes, while Letter Carriers spend more time outside and less time inside. One of the other major issues with SSD is that sortation is taken away from letter carriers and given to the routers.

The longer a Letter Carrier spends outside, the further they walk. They are more likely to become fatigued and/or suffer an injury. Additionally, they are exposed to extreme weather events such as heat waves, freezing temperatures and forest fire smoke for longer. This all has a serious impact on the health of Letter Carriers, and this is all structured on an “average volume” day. The longer a route is, the harder it is to complete on heavy volume days such as when the Canadian Tire flyer goes out to every address on the route.