A pair of local charities that rely on mail-in donations this time of year, say the postal strike is impacting them.
Debbie Marson, executive director at the North Bay Food Bank, admits the postal strike is one of their biggest challenges this Christmas season.
"The postal strike is definitely one of them," Marson admitted during a Tim Hortons Smile Cookie cheque presentation.
"We definitely rely on mail-in donations, we worked around that with setting up electronic funds transfers so we can accept that. We are opening this Saturday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. so people can drop off their donations, cash, gift cards, cheques, whatever they would like to do.
"We can accept tap and credit and debit cards and if they have done a food drive and want to drop their stuff off. We are going to open this Saturday to get past that."
Major Stephanie Watkinson, Corps Officer of The Salvation Army North Bay Ministries, admits the postal strike is causing problems for them too.
"So that's what's making a huge impact, is that the mail in donations that we are not getting, people are dropping some off, which we are grateful for, and people are dropping their cheques off into the kettles, which is great, too," she said.
"But there was one that we haven't received yet, whether it's stuck in the email or hasn't been mailed them out yet, that has really hurt.
"I mean, it is very much hurting us. We were fortunate enough to get our mail out, to go to the community, just like days before the strike happened. But a lot of our regular donors that donate every December are seniors, and they're the ones that mail mail in checks, so and they may not be able to get out to deliver it. So it is really hurting us, whether we get a surge of checks once the postal strike is over, I don't know, but we have to make decisions early January of what we're doing for the year."
Watkinson hopes the strike is over by early January so they can mail out receipts to their Salvation Army donors.
See related: Feds ask labour board to intervene in Canada Post Strike
However, postal workers may be back ot work soon.
The Canadian Press is reporting that Federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon says he is "calling a timeout" in the Canada Post strike, and asking the Canada Industrial Relations Board to send about 55,000 employees back to work.
Mackinnon says the Crown corporation and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers are at an impasse after a nearly month-long work stoppage, and negotiations are actually going in the wrong direction.
He says if the board agrees the two sides are at an impasse, it has been asked to order union members to return to work until May.
With files from Canadian Press
