Mail delivery grinds to halt in protest
Delivery of up to a half million letters ground to a halt today with the 24-hour closure of all sorting facilities attached to 600 sub-post offices in rural parts of the country. Members of the Irish Postmasters’ Union intend to shut down sorting of mail for two days each week until Christmas unless there is settlement of their dispute over payments with An Post. The union is planning a second shutdown on Friday. An Post said last night it considered the postmasters’ action a breach of contract. A spokesman pointed out the company had offered the postmasters a review of their involvement in the mails handling area a starting point towards resolution of the bitter row.
The post office closures will have a major impact on businesses, according to ISME (Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association). “Closures for two days in every week until Christmas are going to create havoc,” said chief executive Mark Fielding. Criticising An Post for allowing the dispute to drag on, he declared: “One of the things we are very disappointed in is the attitude of management, who appear to be sending in the wrong division to negotiate, so the postmasters’ union are not talking to the decision-makers.
There seems to be a lack of concern on management’s part this dispute would have been sorted out long ago if it was Dublin-based.”
The 11-week old row is threatening to bring chaos to Christmas mail deliveries, the busiest period of the year. Peace talks being brokered by industrial relations expert Phil Flynn has so far failed to make any headway.
By a six-to-one majority, IPU members last week voted to extend their industrial action to include closure of the sorting facilities in their sub post offices on two days of each week.
Postmasters are demanding additional fees for early opening of premises to allow sorting to start, for supervising sorting outside normal working hours and for dealing with registered post. Since August, postmasters who are contracted to An Post have been refusing to open premises for sorting before 8am, or to permit the use of premises prior to this time.
Of the country’s 1,800 post offices, 1,700 are sub-contracted to An Post; 1,500 of these are run by IPU members, but only the 600 at the centre of the dispute have sorting facilities.
The dispute is not affecting sorting offices directly under An Post control, including the larger sorting facilities in Dublin, Cork and Limerick
