---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 11:19:02 -0500 From: Eric Jackson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: C4LDEMOC-L: **Star: Private sector didn't help all laid-off ad mai� l workers By Thomas Walkom <Picture>December 23, 1997 By Thomas Walkom �Private sector didn't help all laid-off ad mail workers WE ARE TOLD that when governments cut back, the private sector will pick up the slack. An intriguing York University study shows that this is not quite true. Rather than relying on elegant economic theories or the brave rhetoric of free marketeers, York's Centre for Research on Work and Society took an unusual tack. It tracked real, live government workers who had lost their real, live jobs due to privatization. What it found was both instructive and depressing. The workers looked at by the study, When Public Jobs Go Private, were approximately 9,000, low-paid, part-time ad mail workers laid off by Canada Post last January. Six months later, 24 per cent of them - including many with university educations - were still unable to find jobs. About half had used up all their savings and 7 per cent were on welfare. The study gives a fascinating account not only of what happened to these workers but of the economic and political pressures that cost them their jobs. Ultimately, the ad mail workers (who were not unionized and who received $7.09 an hour for their 10- to 16-hour work week) were casualties in a high-stakes war over advertising. Throughout the '80s and '90s, direct mail - known to most people as junk mail - was increasing its share of a market long dominated by newspapers. As long as the economy boomed, there was enough business for everybody. But the recession of the early '90s hit newspapers particularly hard. The dailies saw their revenues fall by 12 per cent between 1990 and 1995. Weeklies (including many belonging to the same chains that owned the dailies) did better but were affected too. Meanwhile, Canada Post's ad mail division prospered. Started in 1978 and, through a sweetheart deal with its unions, staffed by low-wage workers, Canada Post's so-called economy ad mail division had become a major player in the direct mail business. In 1995, Canada Post's competitors - couriers, private flyer distributors and newspapers - called on the federal Liberal government to force the post office out of the junk mail business. The crown corporation, they said, had an unfair advantage and was using its monopoly over mail delivery to subsidize its flyer operations (The York study concludes there is no evidence that this is true and that in fact Canada Post's junk mail division may have subsidized its letter delivery operation). A few months later, the government set up a commission under former Star editor George Radwanski to determine whether Canada Post should relinquish its junk mail business. Radwanski said yes. Late in 1996, Diane Marleau, who was public works minister, announced that Canada Post would be required to junk its junk mail section. About 9,000 workers were given layoff notice. At the time, Marleau said she was acting because Canadians were sick of junk mail. She insisted that the reinvigorated private sector would pick up those who lost their jobs. In fact, this didn't happen. The study concludes that much of the business vacated by Canada Post went simply to newspapers. Junk mail continued to flood into Canadian homes. But instead of being delivered by Canada Post couriers, it arrived in the form of newspaper inserts. Did newspapers and other direct mail services create 9,000 new jobs to replace those lost? While the York researchers don't answer this definitively, they are dubious. They point out that newspapers were able to use their existing distribution networks of carriers and required few new workers to handle the increase in business. However, they do ignore the possibility that newspapers may have used their extra ad revenues to hire workers in other areas, such as reporting. Still, even in the unlikely circumstance that 9,000 new reporting jobs were created in 1997 as a result of government's junk mail decision, those thrown out of work did not seem to benefit. The York study found that: � More than half of those who relied on their junk mail jobs as their sol� e source of income remained unemployed after six months. � In spite of promises by Canada Post, only 9 per cent were able to get jobs with the crown corporation. � Contrary to popular opinion, junk mail workers were not undereducated, single transients. Almost half had attended college or university; 61 per cent had children at home; more than 50 per cent had worked at Canada Post for more than two years. The York study says that, overall, the government's decision to force Canada Post out of the junk mail business was a bad one. It hurt the workers themselves, cost the post office money and increased welfare costs for taxpayers. ``The only benefit of this action,'' the study concludes, ``has been the increase of business to the large newspaper conglomerates.'' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thomas Walkom's column appears Tuesdays. | |To unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], no subject, with the |following message (and no other text): unsubscribe c4ldemoc-l
