Turning up the pressure, Canada Post announces it is moving to three times a week delivery in most cities because rotating strikes have slashed mail volumes in half.
As Canada Post made its announcement curbing service, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers announced rotating strikes across Canada in small communities beginning at 11:30 pm EDT.
The walkouts will affect four locations in Ontario: Thunder Bay, Hearst, Brantford and St. Thomas. As well, workers are off the job in Labrador City, Labrador; Acadie-Bathurst, New Brunswick; Summerside, P.E.I.; Ste.Therese, Quebec; Ste Jerome, Quebec; Flin Flon, Manitoba; Yellowknife, Northwest Territories; Whitehorse, Yukon; and Vernon, B.C.
Canada Post said home delivery will continue on Thursday, but starting next week, most people who are served by mail carriers will only get delivery of letters, ad mail and small parcels on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Large parcels and priority mail will continue to be delivered on a five-day a week basis.
“Our volumes have dropped off the cliff,” said Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton, saying the company must contain costs as revenues are falling. “The union’s rotating strikes are having a profound impact.”
Canada Post estimates that instead of delivering its usual 40 million items a day, it’s only about 20 million.
“We need to maintain and create good jobs, not cut back on jobs in our communities,” said Denis Lemelin, CUPW National President and chief negotiator, said in a news release high quality business cards. “Smaller communities also benefit from having access to increased services at their post offices. We are asking Canada Post to address these demands.”
Employees will only be paid for the hours they work. Staffing at mail processing plants will also be adjusted to deal with falling volumes.
Post office operating hours and access to post office boxes will be unchanged. Pickups from street letter boxes on major streets will continue as usual.
Canadians who live in rural Canada will continue with daily service because their carriers are covered by a separate contract.
The strike by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers began Friday, with 24- to 48-hour shutdowns across the country. The rotating strikes began in Calgary and Edmonton overnight, after walkouts in Winnipeg, Hamilton, Montreal, Victoria and Moncton.
The union has not hit the Toronto area yet, which includes two of the country’s busiest processing plants, the mail sorting facility on Eastern Ave. and the parcel sorting facility in Mississauga.
It has not ruled out a full nationwide strike at some point, but with rotating strikes, most employees have been able to draw a paycheque. The company’s latest move means their wages will shrink.
Talks are continuing at an Ottawa hotel, but Canada Post said little progress was being made.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers was not immediately available for a response.
UNIVERSITY CITY
Greater Toronto Area home sales and prices increased in May, making it the second best month ever on record, according to figures released Friday.
The Toronto Real Estate Board reported (PDF) 10,046 sales, up six per cent from May of 2010.
Average prices were also up by 9 per cent to $485,520, compared with $446,593 in 2010.
Strongest price growth was for single-detached homes in the City of Toronto.
The union that represents Toronto
DETROIT
This Memorial Day weekend Americans will be skipping the souvenir tee-shirt.
More travelers are expected to hit the road than have since the Great Recession. But they’ll be keeping a tight grip on their wallets thanks to higher gas prices. The typical family plans to spend $692, a decrease of 14 percent from last year’s $809.
“You’ll see people eating sandwiches out the cooler instead of going into a restaurant,” says Susanne Pelt, spokeswoman for the South of the Border roadside attraction in South Carolina.
AAA projects 34.9 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home _ a slight increase of 100,000 travelers from last year and the highest number since 2007. But those who do make the journey will be spending a lot less, AAA and its survey partner IHS Global Insight say, based on interviews with 325 Americans who plan to travel for the holiday.
Rising gas prices are on the minds of 40 percent of travelers, with many planning to take shorter trips or otherwise conserve money. That might mean picking a Holiday Inn Express over a Holiday Inn or driving to a free beach instead of an amusement park.
But most refuse to abandon their vacation altogether.
“Americans really believe a vacation is a right,” says Joseph A. McInerney, CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association. “It’s not a luxury.”
And it’s not just higher gas prices that families have to deal with.
Rates at AAA three diamond hotels are expected to increase 5 percent from a year ago to $148 a night. Cheaper two diamond properties are up 10 percent to $109.
“We are seeing some folks who are saying they have to pinch pennies to make the trip,” says Paula Werne, spokeswoman for Holiday World in the southern Indiana town of Santa Claus.
With the stock market up and the economy generally better than a year ago, not everybody is scrimping and saving.
AAA predicts that 2.93 million people will board an airplane over the Memorial Day weekend, up 11.5 percent from last year despite higher airfares. The airlines have hiked airfares seven times since the start of the year. The average cost of a ticket is up more than 10 percent from last year.
That spike in air travel has also driven up the total distance families are expected to travel to 792 miles. That’s 27 percent greater than last year’s average travel distance of 626 miles.
Increased air travel is a sign that people at the higher end of the income scale are faring better. Those with incomes above $50,000 a year make up 69 percent of those who plan to travel, according to AAA. Last year, they were just 58 percent of the total.
The reason: higher gas prices take up a larger share of lower-income families’ household budgets.
As Memorial Day weekend approaches, pump prices are at their highest level in three years. That’s because oil rose 35 percent from mid-February through late April.
AAA conducted its survey from April 19 to April 23. Since then, gas prices have fallen. The average retail price slipped 8 cents in the past two weeks. Further declines are expected. That could help hotels, resorts and restaurants who count on summer tourists.
Last year, the price of gas fell 20 cents a gallon from the time of AAA’s survey to Memorial Day. AAA had originally predicted 32.1 million would travel. Ultimately, that number was 34.8 million.
Still, gas prices are above $4 a gallon in nine states and the District of Columbia. That plays a large part in people’s vacation planning.
“Gas prices are much more psychological than financial for most people,” says Steve Carvell, associate dean for academic affairs at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration.
Americans are paying an average of $3.91 a gallon at the pump _ $1.05 more than last year. That’s an extra $37 for a family driving 800 miles over the weekend.
“For most people, that’s not going to make or break a vacation plan,” Carvell says.
Brad Garner, chief operating officer at travel firm at STR Global, says people will find a way to make trips work.
The extra cost to fill up the family car over the holiday weekend equates to “a pizza and a six-pack of beer,” says Garner.
Many businesses are playing into that phycology, with hotels and tourist attractions once again offering gas cards to guests.
The Door County Maritime Museum in Sturgeon Bay, Wis., and the Wisconsin Maritime Museum about 100 miles to the south recently started a joint effort to encourage travelers to drive to the two museums, stopping at several cities along Lake Michigan along the way.
Bob Desh, executive director of the first museum says he wants tourists to look at the area differently.
“This is kind of a one-tank weekend trip along the coast,” Desh says.
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Mayerowitz reporter from New York. Reporters Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C., John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Carrie Antlfinger in Milwaukee, Wis., contributed to this report.
Japan’s government decided Friday to set up a fund to help pay damages stemming from the crisis at a tsunami-crippled nuclear plant, financed by public money and mandatory contributions from utility companies.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. expects a deluge of damage claims from those affected by the radiation-leaking Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant on the northeastern coast, whose problems constitute the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986. However, the utility is not expected to be able to pay all of them.
The government’s plan, which would spread the burden for the crisis and must be referred to parliament for its expected approval, would create an entity that collects money for compensation from TEPCO and other utilities that operate nuclear power plants. The government will issue the body special bonds that can be cashed when needed to pay claims.
TEPCO earlier this week agreed to a cost-cutting reorganization, also intended to ensure its ability to pay compensation that includes creating a commission to monitor the company’s management.
Economy and Trade Minister Banri Kaieda insisted earlier this week that the new fund was not a bailout for TEPCO, but rather a way to ensure victims get paid.
“We want to avoid big changes in the electricity bills and contain (the public burden) as much as possible,” Kaieda said Friday.
TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu said he expects the plan to go into effect soon.
“Under this support scheme, while receiving support from the government, we will prepare to compensate those who are suffering in a fair and prompt manner,” he said in a statement.
Shinichi Ichikawa, the director of equity research at Credit Suisse in Tokyo, said the plan needed to achieve three goals: maintain a stable electricity supply, ease concerns of financial markets and ensure victims of the nuclear disaster would be compensated.
“It looks like it’s a good solution,” he said.
TEPCO has sought a 2 trillion yen ($24.8 billion) loan to get it through the initial emergency period. It expects to pay 50 billion yen ($620 million) in initial compensation to nearly 80,000 residents evacuated from around the radiation-leaking plant, which was hit by a giant tsunami after Japan’s massive March 11 earthquake. Overall damages are expected to be much higher.
Also Friday, the operator of a nuclear plant in central Japan began suspending operations at its reactors while it strengthens tsunami protections, under a separate agreement with the government.
The crisis at Fukushima had prompted the government to evaluate all of Japan’s 54 reactors for quake and tsunami vulnerability. The March 11 tsunami knocked out electricity and crucial cooling systems at the Fukushima plant.
That assessment led to Prime Minister Naoto Kan to request a temporary shutdown at the Hamaoka plant in Shizuoka prefecture amid concerns an earthquake with a magnitude of 8 or higher could strike central Japan sometime within 30 years. The Hamaoka facility sits above a major fault line and has long been considered Japan’s riskiest nuclear power plant fast cash online.
Chubu Electric Power Co., which supplies electricity to central Japan, including the city of Toyota, where the automaker is based, said steps to idle the No. 4 reactor at the Hamaoka plant started Friday morning. The company expects to begin halting the No. 5 reactor _ its only other operating reactor _ on Saturday.
Nuclear energy provides more than one-third of Japan’s electricity and shutting the Hamaoka plant is likely to exacerbate power shortages expected this summer. Its reactors account for more than 10 percent of Chubu’s power supply.
The government has said it will not seek similar shutdowns of any other reactors in the country.
Chubu Electric will also indefinitely delay a planned resumption of Hamaoka’s No. 3 reactor, which was shut down for regular maintenance late last year.
In a serious setback for efforts to stabilize the Fukushima plant, officials said Thursday that one of the reactors had been more heavily damaged than previously thought. The findings likely mean it will take longer than expected to restore the plant’s cooling systems. The original plan promised to bring the plant’s three troubled reactors to a cold shutdown by early next year.
Nuclear officials said that new data showed that the water level in the core of Unit 1 was much lower than expected, fully exposing what was left of the fuel rods that had partially melted in the hours and days immediately following the tsunami.
The findings _ which came after workers repaired monitoring equipment this week _ indicate that melted fuel also had fallen to a lump in the bottom of the pressure chamber and may have even slipped into the larger beaker-shaped drywell, or containment vessel.
Nuclear Industrial and Safety Agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama acknowledged for the first time Friday that the condition constituted a “meltdown” under the Japanese definition, which requires melted fuel to drop to the bottom of the core.
“Meltdown” is not a scientific term and the definitions for it vary, though generally a “partial meltdown” refers to the melting of fuel rods _ as has been known to have happened at Fukushima for some time _ and a “complete meltdown” can mean the pressure vessel and other containments have been breached.
Officials made it clear that the fuel had melted early on the crisis and posed no danger now, as the temperature at the bottom of the reactor was around 100 degrees Celsius.
TEPCO had adopted an unorthodox method of trying to cool Unit 1’s reactor by trying to fill the drywell with water leaking from the core. But the new information means that they will have to find a new strategy, said Goshi Hosono, a prime minister’s aide and director of the nuclear crisis task force.
“We were too optimistic,” he said.
Kohl’s Corp.’s first-quarter net income climbed 6 percent as the department store chain controlled expenses and expanded its online business. The company also lifted its full-year earnings outlook Thursday.
Kohl’s earned $211 million, or 73 cents per share, for the period ended April 30. That’s up from $199 million, or 64 cents per share, a year earlier.
The performance met analysts’ expectations.
Revenue rose 3 percent to $4.16 billion from $4.04 billion. Wall Street forecast revenue of $4.26 billion.
Kohl’s, based in Menomonee Falls, Wis., now expects full-year earnings of $4.25 to $4.40 per share, up from $4.05 to $4.25 per share. It anticipates second-quarter earnings of 96 cents to $1.02 per share. Analysts predict full-year earnings of $4.36 per share and second-quarter earnings of $1 per share.
Canadian Tire has made a friendly offer for the country
Apparently people don’t like paying $5 to withdraw their own money from an ATM.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) said Monday it has finished testing $4 and $5 ATM fees for non-customers in two states, and it is now going back to the $3 fees it previously charged.
Earlier this year,the bank had been testing a $5 ATM fee in Illinois and a $4 ATM fee in Texas — both for non-customers who use its ATMs — to see if they brought in enough revenue to introduce nationwide, according to a spokesman for the company.
Out of the bank’s network of 16,000 ATMs, more than 20% — or about 3,600 — are located in these two states.
Chase spent an estimated $400 million to build the entire network and pays $200 million a year to run it. So the bank wanted non-customers to pay a little extra for the convenience of using its large network.
But the $5 fee meant that a $20 withdrawal would cost you a 25% premium for that convenience. And that doesn’t even include what your own bank charges you for going out of network — typically around $3.
But it looks like that $5 threshold inconvenienced enough customers, and convinced them to trek an extra few blocks to their own banks.
So Chase threw in the towel, and the $3 ATM fees you’re used to paying are back — for now.
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