Our Health Our Safety, Publication, Our Health Our Safety

Our Health Our Safety • Volume 7 • Issue 2 • Fall 2009

November 27, 2009

A prototype of the feeder table for the future MLOCR at the Toshiba factory

New equipment under Modern Post

In the Fall 2008 issue of Our Health Our Safety, we published “Health and Safety and the Modern Post.” Since then, we’ve obtained more information about the type of equipment Canada Post intends to purchase to carry out its “postal transformation.” A CUPW delegation also visited the Toshiba plant in the Tokyo area to review the new mail sorting equipment. Below you’ll find a preliminary overview of this equipment.

MLOCRs

Canada Post has awarded Toshiba a contract to design and manufacture new Multi Line Optical Character Readers (MLOCRs).

The MLOCR will have up to 304 stackers spread out over two levels; one 50 inches above the ground, and the other, 29 inches. Two rows of trays that can fit the different types of lettertainers will be placed below the stackers, at 29 inches for the upper level and 16 inches for the lower. These machines will have printers linked together by a telescopic arm located at every third row of drawers. The TT1200-series equipment will be a different version from the TT1100 machines now in use in Sweden. It is manufactured to Canada Post specifications. According to Toshiba, the new equipment sequences up to 41,000 letters per hour with a reading accuracy rate of 99.9%. The first machines should be ready for delivery to Canada Post by November.

Breaking News!

At a union-management meeting held on October 22nd, Canada Post announced that it would only be installing 173 MLOCRs in its facilities. Therefore, the four-level BCSs will not be introduced on the work floors.

Human Guinea Pigs?

The employer would like us to believe that these machines are ergonomically safe despite the fact that no health and safety study was conducted. Canada Post presented CUPW with a work simulation report claiming that the risk of ergonomicallyrelated injuries resulting from sweeping the stackers of the BCS and MLOCR is minimal...