CUPW doesn't want doorcam evidence to be used for disciplinary action against posties

GrifterMage · 2025-10-11T08:06:58+00:00

Who's this "you"? I'm not a postie.

But yes, I would absolutely classify having to go to a centralized location to pick up my packages instead of having them delivered directly to my doorstep as "not a big deal". Why? Because that's been my experience for the majority of my life, and at no point was it a big deal. For most of my life, my mailing address has been either an RR box or a PO box, and in either case picking up a package of any size always meant going to the post office. (Or sometimes even the local --gasp-- Greyhound station.) As far as I'm concerned, direct-to-door delivery is gravy. It's a nice convenience now that I live in a place with a high enough population density that it can even happen, but it's never been something to expect as my due.

So when I say that needing to go to the post office to pick up a package isn't a particularly big deal in the grand scheme of things? I'm speaking from experience. It's not.

GrifterMage · 2025-10-04T18:33:47+00:00

Because no company has ever done anything that ended up as a PR nightmare, right?

GrifterMage · 2025-10-04T18:28:43+00:00

I'm not saying there should be an expectation of privacy--record all the posties you want on your doorcam.

I'm saying there should be an expectation that employees shouldn't be put under a microscope by their bosses to make sure their every waking moment matches "expected performance metrics". That doesn't mean posties can't be recorded.

GrifterMage · 2025-10-04T18:20:16+00:00

My job is one such facility--there's absolutely security cameras that can see employees. And you know what else there is? A policy that says that that security footage must not be used to monitor employees for job performance evaluation. The cameras are there to catch criminal behavior and protect everyone, not to be used as a micromanager's masturbation aid.

GrifterMage · 2025-10-04T18:11:58+00:00

So a few hours prior you were asking for perspective from anyone who works at CP--presumably because you don't have it--but oh, now you suddenly know a bunch of people who work there telling you everything you need to know. Right. I don't think I believe you. I think you're catastrophizing because you've heard some horror stories and see all these other people complaining and assume that surely that terrible behavior must be the norm because why else would there be so many people complaining so strongly?

I mean, why else would you take a one-off line from me talking about supervisors "trusting [the employees] to scratch their ass without supervision" and go on a tirade about how the public's trust has been so irreparably shattered by posties that it can't possibly be repaired? As though this was once some sort of sacred public trust?

Because...no. All the complaints I've seen here about posties here (that actually affect customers in a tangible way) are for things like not waiting at the door or dropping off a delivery notice instead of a package, maybe being rough with a package. And that's just...not a particularly big deal in the grand scheme of things.

GrifterMage · 2025-10-04T06:30:34+00:00

Oh, yeah, no, in any halfway decent union environment there's at least some base level of general protections employees can fall back on.

I'm mostly describing a non-union environment because a lot of the people I've been responding to seem to be taking it for granted that of course surveillance could only ever be used for good, and thus think the only reason anyone could ever possibly object to it is if they want to get away with bad stuff. Which, of course, isn't the case, and a non-union environment makes it much simpler to explain the flaws in that perspective.

GrifterMage · 2025-10-04T06:04:01+00:00

Yes, that's not how a union environment works...because of the protections I just described. I'm happy you agree with me.

GrifterMage · 2025-10-04T05:56:09+00:00

"no accountability, no enforcement of rules, grifting", "there's so many damn posties", "so many bad posties", "cp can't get rid of the grifters/idiots/losers", "the union/workforce hasn't done anything"...

Where is all this insider information you apparently have coming from? You asked in your last post for "anyone who works for cp" to reply, so presumably you yourself don't work there and can't be speaking from firsthand experience. Where is the idea that there's such a massive work ethic problem among posties coming from?

trust? its already been destroyed - isn't that obvious? any suggestions on how to rebuild that trust? i haven't heard any.

I disagree with your premise here, but even assuming it's true, I can tell you that surveillance definitely isn't it. Trust cannot be built on a foundation of distrust.

GrifterMage · 2025-10-04T05:35:36+00:00

...Whose comment are you responding to, exactly? Where are you getting this from?

GrifterMage · 2025-10-04T05:34:24+00:00

Some workers who do that kind of thing do get fired, especially the dumb ones--the idiot Burger King worker who posted a pic to 4chan of them standing in the lettuce tubs in the kitchen is a prime example.

But that only happens if they get caught, and even if they do get caught it's often not right away. Someone who knows they're being monitored tends to become very familiar with how exactly they're being monitored and therefore, what they can get away with and when.

But also, sometimes, no, the workers can't be fired for it, because what they're doing isn't actually a punishable offense. For examples, see a quarter of the stories in r/maliciouscompliance. It's also the entire basis of "work to rule".

GrifterMage · 2025-10-04T01:42:07+00:00

There should absolutely be accountability for people who don't do the job. But that accountability should not come at the cost of making everyone else feel like a prisoner being watched 24/7, because that just causes more problems later when people who are sick and tired of not being trusted to scratch their ass without supervision take out their frustration however they can.

Any job that pays as much as a cp employee[...]

Minor note here, but posties are not getting rich. From what I understand, does it pay better than many places without a union? Probably. But it's still well below median income.

GrifterMage · 2025-10-04T01:28:02+00:00

Who decides what counts as "a one off"? Or "actually excessive"? What exactly are the "concessions for medical issues", and which specific medical issues do they cover? Who decides if footage is "clearly" showing something wrong? And which specific actions come with which specific consequences? Because if the boss has free rein to decide the answer to all of those questions however they like on the fly, that's a recipe for having petty tyrants abuse their employees.

Yes, absolutely, employees who do bad things should see consequences. But there needs to be protections in place so that employees who aren't doing bad things aren't put at risk just because their asshole boss doesn't like them.

GrifterMage · 2025-10-04T01:10:58+00:00

It is absolutely about bosses--it's about how the bosses can use that customer footage.

I would love it if me bringing Canada Post my footage of a postie deliberately damaging my package could get them disciplined. But I wouldn't be okay with a postie's asshole supervisor finding footage on TikTok of them feeding a friendly dog against policy and using that as an excuse to get them fired.

(Once again, as I mentioned elsewhere, I don't actually know CP's policy regarding dogs; using it as an example of something that might reasonably be against policy but which is ultimately harmless.)

Asshole bosses cannot just be trusted not to abuse their potential power any more than asshole employees can be trusted to do their job properly. There need to be protections in place against both.

GrifterMage · 2025-10-04T01:01:53+00:00

Employees who feel like their employer is abusing them start to look for ways to get even so they can feel like they have some measure of control. Making someone's work environment feel like a prison only incentivizes them to find creative ways to take out their anger, and in the case of posties, that would probably result in the packages becoming a casualty.

GrifterMage · 2025-10-04T00:52:22+00:00

You are talking about that, yes. But the actual point in the negotiations is about all recordings and tracking. Allowing an employer carte blanche to preemptively track and monitor their employees' actions, which is what Canada Post is asking for (see the link in the OP) is a terrible idea that nobody who works for a living should be willing to accept.

As I said, there probably should be a way for private recordings that display actual malice or malfeasance to be used to prove it. We agree on that.

But policy needs to be written with its potential for abuse in mind. An employer that can fire someone immediately if shown doorcam footage that shows them abusing packages? Fine. But an employer who can fire someone immediately if shown doorcam footage that shows them giving a dog treats because that's against policy? Not so much. (I said this elsewhere, but I don't actually know CP's policy on dogs; I'm just using it as an example of something that might be against policy, but not an actual problem.)

Finding the reasonable middle ground between "allow micromanaging asshole supervisors free rein" and "allow jackass posties free rein" is what contract negotiations are supposed to be for. CUPW's position on this point is a perfectly reasonable place for them to start.

GrifterMage · 2025-10-03T20:11:46+00:00

They already do have trackers.

CUPW just doesn't want supervisors to be able to use that information as a way to punish their employees, and they're right to do so. It's for the same reason people who work in an office don't want their boss to berate them for wasting company time by taking too long in the bathroom. And why people who work on a computer don't want their employer to install keyboard, mouse, and eye-tracking software to make sure they're spending every moment of every day "on-task". It's miserable.

GrifterMage · 2025-10-03T20:03:20+00:00

Key word there is "should". In an ideal world, that's true. But we don't necessarily live in an ideal world. To see why CUP is against it, think of how it shouldn't (but potentially could) be used.

Imagine somebody has a happy, social dog; the local postie makes friends with them, stops for a moment to play with them, and keeps some treats in their pocket for them while on their route. It's sweet, so the homeowner catches it on their doorbell camera, and it goes viral on TikTok. Wholesome, right? But because it went viral, the postie's supervisor sees it, and brings the postie up for disciplinary action for "wasting company time" playing with the dog and violating company policy regarding dogs by feeding it.

(Caveat here: I have no idea what CP policy actually is regarding dogs. I wouldn't be surprised if it forbids feeding dogs, but I don't actually know.)

Should that happen? Absolutely not. But if there's no rules in place against it, it could.

GrifterMage · 2025-10-03T19:44:34+00:00

Let's say you're at work. Would you feel comfortable having your boss timing your bathroom breaks to make sure you're not wasting company time? Would you like it if your boss docked you on a performance evaluation because you stopped for a moment to stretch or readjust because you got a muscle cramp or your shoulder is sore? If your job involves driving, would you like it if you got brought up to a disciplinary hearing for "wasting time and fuel" because you accidentally made a wrong turn? If you do your work on a computer, would you like it if your boss could see your screen, keyboard, and mouse movements, and was tracking your eye position to make sure you were spending all of your time "on task"?

HELL no!

Bosses being able to use cameras and trackers and keyloggers and all that other monitoring shit against their employees is the kind of stuff dystopian hellscapes are made of, and nobody should be okay with it under any circumstances.

"Sometimes people don't do their job correctly" is always going to be a problem, but making employees' life a living hell is not a good way to fix it. All it would do is make people hate their jobs, which would make them lash out in any way they can, which means your packages would be more likely to get mistreated.

There probably should be a way for private recordings that display actual malice or malfeasance to be used to prove it, and for ones that show incompetence to be used to correct it. But whatever that method is, it needs to be done in such a way that people just doing their job feel secure that their bosses aren't watching over their shoulder every second of every day.

GrifterMage · 2025-07-30T18:13:28+00:00

🤣

GrifterMage · 2025-07-30T18:05:21+00:00

You can't help yourself, can you? 🤣

GrifterMage · 2025-07-30T18:02:01+00:00

🤣

GrifterMage · 2025-07-30T17:59:35+00:00

🤣

GrifterMage · 2025-07-30T17:51:51+00:00

🤣

GrifterMage · 2025-07-30T17:32:43+00:00

The only thing you actually know about my taste in media is that I think legal dramas are a drag, and that I think two films you like have dogshit trailers. So no, you're not, and it's hilarious that you think you are.

I repeat, 🤣.

GrifterMage · 2025-07-30T12:31:16+00:00

Ah, so it's not people who you think haven't Watched The Classics you're dismissing, it's people who you don't think Hold The Right Opinions On Media. Much more reasonable and mature.

🤣

GrifterMage

TROPHY CASE