Local Grimsby newspaper relies on community help amid Canada Post strike

More than 50,000 postal workers with Canada Post across the country are about to hit the one-week mark on the picket lines.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers’ (CUPW) strike has brought mail delivery to a halt, and that means some companies have had to get creative to get their products to customers.

This sudden work stoppage has forced small businesses in Canada to get creative in order to maintain orders.

NewsNow, a small weekly community paper in Grimsby, is one of those businesses.

Mike Williscraft, owner of the newspaper organization, says he had been planning for a disruption of this kind for almost a year.

“You can see the writing on the wall a year ago,” he said. “I was anticipating [postal workers] using Christmas as leverage, and her we are…in March we ran come ads looking for carriers.”

NewsNow’s readers stepped up in a major way to help maintain delivery.

“We have about 200 of our 220 routes covered…we’ve been running notices for people to pick up the paper themselves in rural areas,” Williscraft said.

One of the community members who stepped up is Allan Smith, a retired teacher.

“We depend on the paper, the advertising and what’s written,” he said. “Having a run around the block delivering papers would be a good thing to do.”

Meantime, CUPW members on the picket line say they are “busy trying to get better wages and working conditions.”

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