A Canada Post letter carrier delivering mail. (Photo via Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)

The closure of Kamloops This Week in October has led to an increase in workload for letter carriers in the City.

Tracy Hodgkin, the president of the Kamloops local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, says while delivering flyers is something they’ve always done, the volume over the past few weeks has led to an increased workload.

“Part of our job is the flyers but now we’re having to navigate the excess and the amount and the weight of the flyers that the newspaper used to distribute,” Hodgkin told Radio NL.

“They can weigh over a pound for one set for 18 flyers. You think about a letter carrier that is on a foot walk where you can carry a max of 35 pounds, you load up with flyers for 70 points of call, so you’re going to 70 houses, that is going to weigh over 70 pounds.”

Hodgkin says those requirements mean some of the roughly letter carriers in Kamloops are spending more time reloading their carrying bags instead of actually delivering mail.

She says there are 59 permanent routes and 10 rural routes, with about 30 relief carriers. Half of the 59 routes are what Hodgkin called “foot walks.”

“People do work overtime. It does make for longer days, you know 10, 11 hour days, 12 hour days, and we’ve got families to go home to as well,” she said, noting the compensation for the extra work is “adequate.”

“We’ve got the weight, we’ve got the volume, we are dealing with peak season with increased packets, parcels, and mail. This is increasing the risk of injury as well.”

Hodgkin says Kamloops is not the only community facing this issue, telling Radio NL the union is trying to work with Canada Post to find solutions.

“Our local management has reached out to get us more boxes, more pick up boxes for our mail. They have offered carts but we are coming into winter so we can’t be pushing carts in the snow,” Hodgkin said, noting she isn’t sure when the changes could be implemented.

“It’s coming from the higher ups.”