Irish An Post on the brink of securing productivity deal with employees

An Post is on the brink of a new productivity deal that will secure major savings in the company’s E38 million yearly overtime burden.

An Post’s collection and delivery staff have been offered a 4 per cent productivity allowance and an increase in pay scales to be allocated as savings are achieved, in return for accepting flexible work practices, according to the deal seen by The Sunday Business Post.

A 2.4 per cent pay increase would be introduced after 12 months provided that 46 per cent of savings are achieved, while a further 4.2 per cent would kick in after 24 months when a target 90 per cent of savings are achieved.

Considerable progress has been made by the Labour Court in resolving a bitter dispute over An Post’s cost-cutting strategy and the non-delivery of pay increases due under national wage deal.

We would view that we’ve come a long way from where we were, but there’s a number of critical issues that we’ve to look for clarification on. If we get it in the right way, we would be hopeful that they’ll accept the recommendations from the court, said Sean McDonagh of the Communications Workers’ Union.

The company will make all payments due under Sustaining Progress from January 2005,on acceptance by the union of the proposals for collection and delivery.

Any agreement must be formally ratified by both parties, while a strict monitoring mechanism will be forced to ensure it is honoured by the parties.

The company has paid 5 per cent backdated under Sustaining Progress from January this year, after the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) judged that it could not afford to make the full backdated payments.

Staff will receive a further 1.5 per cent from November this year, and 2.5 per cent due in May 2006, provided the trade unions agree to the productivity deal.

The CWU has sought clarification from the Labour Court on retrospective payments due from November 1 2003 to January 2005.

Under the deal, backdated payments would be made when the company returns to reasonable and sustainable profits and financial circumstances permit’, and these payments can be on a phased basis.

An Post’s business plan has been delayed for over almost two years at the Relations Commission by the dispute over its plan to introduce 1,400 redundancies and overtime cuts.