Covid-19 face mask stand-off splits postal bosses and workers

The Canadian postal service is seeking “clarification” from the country’s government after facing a backlash for banning employees from using their own N95 respirator-style masks at work.

The company last week warned its 64,000-strong workforce that “employees had to use a Canada Post-issued cloth mask or disposable medical mask”, or face being sent home, Vancouver-based Global News reported.

But amid a backlash from workers who argue that N95 masks are more effective against the Omicron variant, Canada Post issued a statement saying that the firm was “now working with federal authorities to seek clarification and understand their guidance” in order to “ensure we are doing everything possible to keep our employees safe”.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

‘Thought it was a joke’

A mail carrier who works for Canada Post told how he was sent home and “suspended without pay for the day” over “the type of mask he was wearing, despite it being better than the company's masks”, reported CTV News Winnipeg.

Corey Gallagher, whose wife is immunocompromised, told local media in the southern city that he “thought it was some kind of a joke” when he was ordered by a supervisor to remove his N95 respirator mask and replace it with a cloth alternative.

After Gallagher refused, “multiple supervisors” reportedly approached him asking “if he needed a mask and then telling him he couldn't wear the one he had”. After refusing again to swap masks the following day, he was sent home.

“This is personal. I’d like to keep my family safe if I can,” said Gallagher, the father of a child who is too young to be vaccinated. He added that he would be taking paid leave until the row was resolved.

In an email to CTV News, Canada Post said the company “fully supports” official guidelines “and therefore requires all employees to wear a Canada Post-supplied face covering, which is either a reusable cloth face covering or a disposable medical mask”.

“Canada Post will continue to monitor best practices and recommendations with respect to face coverings, and update our requirements accordingly,” the email said.

Guidance from the Public Health Agency of Canada currently states that non-medical, cloth masks can be used and don’t have to meet any required standard. But the agency added that “while non-medical masks can help prevent the spread of Covid-19, medical masks and respirators provide better protection”.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has called on the postal service to rethink its masks policy. In a statement to the National Post, union president Jan Simpson said: “Research on the new Omicron variant has established it is more transmissible through shared air than earlier variants.

“The union has asked Canada Post to provide N95 masks or suitable alternatives to all postal workers and, at the very least, allow those who’ve purchased their own N95 or KN95 masks to wear them.”

The dispute has “raised broader questions over which masks offer the best protection”, said The Guardian, and highlights “the challenges facing public health agencies and large companies as they attempt to establish universal masking policies”.

“Things are moving so fast,” John Lynch, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Washington, told the paper. “Public health agencies really want to use science to make recommendations – but those recommendations have to apply to a virtually infinite number of scenarios.

“They’re responding to the science as fast as they can. But that’s not always effectively and clearly communicated.”