Impact of Express Delivery Industry’s Development on Transportation Sector’s Carbon Emissions: An Empirical Analysis from China

In recent years, China’s express delivery industry has developed rapidly. According to a rough estimate in this paper, carbon emissions caused by express parcel transportation in China account for 1/7 of the transportation sector’s carbon emissions. However, considering the possibility of a scale effect, it is unclear whether the express delivery industry’s development will inevitably lead to more carbon emissions. Therefore, this paper uses the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2008 to 2017 to explore the complex relationship between the express delivery industry’s development and the transportation sector’s carbon emissions, and also conducts regional heterogeneity analysis. The main findings are as follows: (1) There is a significant U-shaped relationship between per capita express delivery amounts and the transportation sector’s CO2 emissions, especially in the Central region. (2) At the national level, the number of per capita postal outlets significantly promotes the transportation sector’s CO2 emissions. (3) The impact caused by the number of per capita postal workers varies regionally. Increasing postal worker numbers in the Western region can significantly reduce carbon emissions, while the result in the Central region is the opposite. (4) The Express Comprehensive Development Index (ECDI) has a significant U-shaped effect on the transportation sector’s carbon emissions at the national and sub-regional level.

Legitimating Worker Disentitlement: Editorial Depictions of Canadian Postal Workers’ Wage Struggles in the Globe and Mail from 1970 to 2015

Background Since the late 1970s, inflation-adjusted wages have stagnated as workers’ bargaining power has diminished. The discursive environment in which workers’ wage entitlements is contested is an important—yet often neglected—influence on worker bargaining power. Analysis The authors examine editorials published in the Globe and Mail between 1970 and 2015 related to postal workers’ wage bargaining to examine the criteria advanced to evaluate the legitimacy of workers’ wage demands. Conclusions and implications The discourses examined contribute to normalizing and legitimating postal worker disentitlement by emphasizing harm as the evaluatory criterion by which workers’ demands are judged. This framing of postal workers and their wage struggles contributes to an environment in which the legitimacy of wage demands is undermined, contributing to the overall economic and political climate in which wages have stagnated. Résumé Contexte Depuis la fin des années 1970, les salaires ajustés en fonction de l’inflation stagnent à mesure que le pouvoir de négociation des travailleurs diminue. L’environnement du discours dans lequel les droits salariaux des travailleurs sont contestés est une influence importante—mais souvent négligée—sur le pouvoir de négociation des travailleurs Analyse Les auteurs examinent les éditoriaux publiés dans le Globe and Mail entre 1970 et 2015 concernant la négociation salariale des travailleurs des postes afin d’examiner les critères avancés pour évaluer la légitimité des revendications salariales des travailleurs. Conclusions et implications Les discours examinés contribuent à normaliser et à légitimer l’inadmissibilité des travailleurs des postes en mettant l’accent sur le préjudice comme critère d’évaluation par lequel les demandes des travailleurs sont jugées. Ce cadrage des postiers et de leurs luttes salariales contribue à un environnement dans lequel la légitimité des revendications salariales est minée, contribuant au climat économique et politique global dans lequel les salaires ont stagné.

Does the Home-Visit Communicating Service by Postal Workers Improve the Mental Health of Older Persons Living Alone?

In Japan, the number of older households living alone or married couples is increasing as society ages. For such households, Japan Post offers “Mimamori Home-visit service” a fee-based service where postal workers visit once a month to check their living and health conditions. We examined whether the use of this service improves the mental health of users. There were 10,592 service users as February 2019. The survey targeted 524 people (356 women) who started using the system in January or February (wave1) and continued using until August 2019 (wave2). The mean age was 79.5 years. Visiting postal workers conducted tablet-based interviews to assess social support networks (LSNS-6) and mental health (WHO-5). Information on gender, age, and family form (living alone or not) was provided by Japan Post. The WHO-5 average score was 16.4 for wave1 and 16.3 for wave2. Changes in mental health (WHO-5 scores) at 2 time points were compared by ANCOVA using family form (living alone or not) and social isolation (12 points or less/13 or more for LSNS-6) as explanatory variables and gender and age as covariates. The results showed a significant interaction between the 3 factors of time, family form, and social isolation. WHO-5 scores increased (14.2 to 15.3) in the group that lived alone and had 12 or less of LSNS-6. In the other group, the score was no change or lowered. It has been shown that mental health improves with the use of monitoring services in elderly people living alone and in social isolation.

Going Postal

Chapter three examines work suicides at La Poste, situating these in the context of a restructuring strategy that sought to transform the company from a public service entity, underpinned by a notion of the general interest, to a commercial entity, driven by product sales. Whereas earlier reforms had modified external working methods and practices, the new phase of restructuring sought to transform workers themselves, targeting their ways of being, seeing and thinking. I draw on Michel Foucault’s conception of disciplinary surveillance to examine the management methods that were imposed across the company following its liberalisation. Whilst the company was freed of regulatory controls and administrative constraints, the individual employee was subject to intensified surveillance of everyday working activity. The chapter examines a corpus of suicide letters in which postal workers explain the causes and motivations of their self-killing. Many employees experienced restructuring as a cultural assault that undermined the values, meanings and ideals by which they had defined themselves and their place in the world. The case of La Poste shows that when company strategy transcends external working activity and targets the intimate, subjective and vulnerable resources of the person, this can have deleterious consequences for lived experiences of work.

Almost Striking Again, Arbitration, and Automation, 1980s–1990s

Chapter Seven studies how antagonistic labor-management contract negotiations between the U.S. Postal Service and its two major unions, the National Association of Letter Carriers and the American Postal Workers Union, almost ended with a called strike by those unions in the first year of President Ronald Reagan’s administration (1981-1989). This strike was averted by an arbitration mechanism built into the PRA. Union solidarity was embodied in the Joint Bargaining Committee. This chapter also charts the effects of automation on the workforce from the 1970s through the early 2000s.

The U.S. Postal Service and the Postal Unions in the 1970s

Chapter Six shows how postal unions made use of increased collective bargaining rights to win higher pay and increased benefits. At the same time, there was constant conflict with postal management and within the unions on issues of democracy and militancy in the first decade of the new U.S. Postal Service. By 1971, the National Association of Letter Carriers and the new American Postal Workers Union had emerged as the two leading postal unions representing workers and instituting reforms. The U.S. Postal Service would also be bargaining with two smaller unions that had little or nothing to do with the strike—the National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association.

Introduction

This introductory chapter argues that this strike was a ground-breaking, successful rebellion against the federal government and postal union leadership. Both organized and spontaneous, it was a strike that also helps reveal rank-and-file militancy during that time as something rising, not falling--especially in the growing public sector. Postal labor was vital to the movement of mail, and postal workers were well positioned to wildcat by virtue of being so thoroughly unionized yet forbidden by law to strike. The stage had already been set for upsurge with the 1960s spike in the hiring of African Americans, women, veterans, and young people, and with a leading role played by New York City postal workers. This chapter draws connections between the strike and the resulting Postal Reorganization Act, which subsequently left the U.S. Postal Service vulnerable to subsequent laws and policy measures that harmed the agency’s financial viability.