Portuguese postal service hit by strike
Transportation and distribution workers at Portugal’s state-owned mail company CTT have staged a one-day strike today over job security issues, which a union official said would delay mail deliveries.
The postal company said it would give priority to express and registered mail, as well as to the delivery of old-age pension checks and shipments of medicine, during the strike. Post offices were not affected.
The National Union of Mail and Telecommunications Workers called the strike to protest plans by CTT to shift its large-volume customers, who account for 70 pct of the firm’s revenues, to another company called Mailtec.
Union officials argue the measure would put between 300 and 400 jobs at risk.
Postal workers at Portugal’s three main sorting offices staged a weeklong series of stoppages during the last week of November over the same issue.
Postal workers have called a general strike involving all departments for December 27.
CTT employs some 13,000 workers. It handles around six mln items a day.
