An Post to seek further staff cull

Company looks to shed 1,100 workers through 40m redundancy and retirement deal

AN POST is to seek a further 1,100 voluntary redundancies and early retirements.

The company has earmarked 40m for the payoffs. It has 9,343 full-time and casual staff.

Should the offer be taken up and the full amount of 40m is paid out the average payout would come to over 36,000.

An Post chief Donal Curtin said some 1,200 workers had taken up the company’s early redundancy or severance packages over the past three years.

He added that a further 1,100 have confirmed their applications to leave the company over the next 24 months.

The changes agreed with the Communications Workers Union (CWU) will ultimately see a 20pc reduction in staff levels.

Meanwhile, it also emerged yesterday that staff are to seek 20m in back pay as the company yesterday reported operating profits of 16m for 2005. As management announced the results, delegates at the CWU conference in Cork agreed to seek payment of wage increases which were frozen in 2004.

Union general secretary Steve Fitzpatrick said: “We both have an interest in building a good, reliable postal service and we don’t want trouble or war but we will do whatever we have to if forced into conflict,” he said.

Mr Fitzpatrick said that he remained very conscious that one third of those affected by major change in the post and delivery sections of An Post had voted against the recent restructuring plans.

He congratulated the union’s main postal organiser Sean McDonagh for ensuring that payments which had been withheld under Sustaining Progress were finally made in the restructuring agreement.

An Post plans to offer greater financial services from early next year and has not ruled out the provision of mortgages to its customers. It has formed a joint venture with Belgian bank Fortis and will be rolling out offers and ATMs from 2006.

The conference also heard that the top basic rate of pay for a postman or woman was now set at 486 a week.

A Dublin delegate said that at 25,272 a year this was 6,000 below the average industrial wage.

Other delegates highlighted their demands that special allowances should be consolidated into their basic pay which would also provide enhanced pensions for some older employees.

Dublin delegate Eamon McNally claimed that senior managers in An Post were on basic salaries of over 100,000 plus a 20pc bonus and free health insurance.

Jim Aughney and Gerald Flynn