Gloves are off in bitter wrangle at Irish An Post

The essence of the management view of the rapidly escalating industrial dispute at An Post is "the postmen failed to deliver so we are going to collect".

Over the weekend management has suspended nearly 300 postal sorters at the Dublin mail centre without pay. This came after the main union, the Communications Workers'Union (CWU) decided on Friday to pull back for a week on implementation of themembership ballot which, earlier this month, approved action by an 86pc majority. Ostensibly, the threatened strike is a response to a management decision in Novembernot to pay the first 3pc phase under the Sustaining Progress pay deal at the heavilyloss-making state company.

Union officials advised members not to accept instructions to work new patterns and,apparently, to stop working patterns introduced a year ago in return for special payincreases. Management responded rapidly even though they were engineering a major row for tomorrow morning.

Both sides have been shaping up for this stand-off for nearly two years. Basically, the workforce was offered special pay rises of between 12pc and 14pc and a 15pc employeeshareholding in return for improved productivity, working automated postal sorting andabolishing much of the endemic overtime.

Six months later the management announced proposals for 1,000 job cuts, roughly 10pcof the workforce. It was never implemented and a new chief executive, Donal Curtin washired indirectly from the ESB where he had been the hard-headed, internationalinvestments chief.

He soon reported that the projected 1m profits for 2003 would be a massive 46m loss instead. His new plan to sort out An Post involved 1,450 redundancies being agreed by the end of January and implemented before the end of 2006.

Since then there has been a major cull of senior and middle management with four out ofevery ten due for 'a transition experience' which, in plain speaking, means redundancy, removal or early-retirement.

The three smaller public service unions with members in An Post have made progress in negotiating exit packages for their members. The CWU has not participated indiscussions since last December.

Mr Curtain is not a man to hang about. Over the past two months he has been planning to bring the fight to the CWU by moving to implement the productivity improvementsallegedly agreed in return for the pay rises two years ago.

Meanwhile, the CWU is taking a stand over the 3pc and the promised 15pc employeeshareholding never delivered by Communications Minister Dermot Ahern.

And the CWU is no push-over. Its postal members have long experience in doggeddisruptions going back to their famous three-month strike 25 years ago.

The union is in a bit of a bind insofar as the current 'social partnership' – Sustaining Progress – specifically bans any form of industrial action in relation to an 'inability to pay' claim unless specific procedures are followed. These are that the union or management,or both, refer the issue to the Labour Relations Commission. It would appoint an assessor to examine the financial situation in relation to meeting what would be an extra 18m wage bill.

The assessor would not need new batteries in his/her calculator to figure out that An Post is currently losing over 100,000 a day! Looks like a pretty strong case in favour of a pleaof inability to pay.

But the CWU members reckon that if An Post cannot meet their pay rise then theExchequer should make up the money. Anyway, as long as the management withholds the 3pc there is no chance that they will sit down to chat about axing 1,450 jobs.

Unlike 25 years ago, we now have e-mail and electronic bill payments and cash transfers. A postal strike in 2004 could be very different from 1979.The essence of the management view of the rapidly escalating industrialdispute at An Post is "the postmen failed to deliver so we are going to collect".

Over the weekend management has suspended nearly 300 postal sorters at the Dublin mail centre without pay. This came after the main union, the Communications Workers'Union (CWU) decided on Friday to pull back for a week on implementation of themembership ballot which, earlier this month, approved action by an 86pc majority. Ostensibly, the threatened strike is a response to a management decision in Novembernot to pay the first 3pc phase under the Sustaining Progress pay deal at the heavilyloss-making state company.

Union officials advised members not to accept instructions to work new patterns and,apparently, to stop working patterns introduced a year ago in return for special payincreases. Management responded rapidly even though they were engineering a major row for tomorrow morning.

Both sides have been shaping up for this stand-off for nearly two years. Basically, the workforce was offered special pay rises of between 12pc and 14pc and a 15pc employeeshareholding in return for improved productivity, working automated postal sorting andabolishing much of the endemic overtime.

Six months later the management announced proposals for 1,000 job cuts, roughly 10pcof the workforce. It was never implemented and a new chief executive, Donal Curtin washired indirectly from the ESB where he had been the hard-headed, internationalinvestments chief.

He soon reported that the projected 1m profits for 2003 would be a massive 46m loss instead. His new plan to sort out An Post involved 1,450 redundancies being agreed by the end of January and implemented before the end of 2006.

Since then there has been a major cull of senior and middle management with four out ofevery ten due for 'a transition experience' which, in plain speaking, means redundancy, removal or early-retirement.

The three smaller public service unions with members in An Post have made progress in negotiating exit packages for their members. The CWU has not participated indiscussions since last December.

Mr Curtain is not a man to hang about. Over the past two months he has been planning to bring the fight to the CWU by moving to implement the productivity improvementsallegedly agreed in return for the pay rises two years ago.

Meanwhile, the CWU is taking a stand over the 3pc and the promised 15pc employeeshareholding never delivered by Communications Minister Dermot Ahern.

And the CWU is no push-over. Its postal members have long experience in doggeddisruptions going back to their famous three-month strike 25 years ago.

The union is in a bit of a bind insofar as the current 'social partnership' – Sustaining Progress – specifically bans any form of industrial action in relation to an 'inability to pay' claim unless specific procedures are followed. These are that the union or management,or both, refer the issue to the Labour Relations Commission. It would appoint an assessor to examine the financial situation in relation to meeting what would be an extra 18m wage bill.

The assessor would not need new batteries in his/her calculator to figure out that An Post is currently losing over 100,000 a day! Looks like a pretty strong case in favour of a pleaof inability to pay.

But the CWU members reckon that if An Post cannot meet their pay rise then theExchequer should make up the money. Anyway, as long as the management withholds the 3pc there is no chance that they will sit down to chat about axing 1,450 jobs.

Unlike 25 years ago, we now have e-mail and electronic bill payments and cash transfers. A postal strike in 2004 could be very different from 1979.