Temporary workers row as post service returns

More than 2,000 post boxes will have the seals removed over the next few days as An Post begins taking mail again.

However, while formal negotiations between An Post management and staff begin tomorrow at the Labour Relations Commission, another row is developing over the status of 200 temporary postal workers in Dublin. Management and union representatives in Dublin will meet today to discuss the issue.

The Communications Workers' Union (CWU) has accused management of "taking a very belligerent attitude", a view emphatically rejected by An Post. A company spokesman said "we are taking steps to manage this process as we think it should be managed".

An Post on Friday announced the re-instatement of 89 postal workers, and that it was re-instating 200 temporary postal workers to help the company get over the "huge bulge" created by the overload of mail that had piled up. The company said it would be operating like at Christmas to get normal service back .

However, a spokesman for the CWU said that one of the conditions for the LRC talks was that both parties stick to pre-existing agreements. The CWU claims that under a 1992 agreement temporary workers are employed for a minimum of seven months, and that An Post was breaching this condition.

A spokesman for the company rejected this and said the issue was about overtime. The company spent €34 million a year on overtime, €17 million of that sum in Dublin, and the company had to address this.

However, the CWU denied the issue was about overtime, but about protecting temporary workers' conditions.

Meanwhile, the formal talks between the CWU and management about changes in work practices start tomorrow under the auspices of Mr Tom Pomphrett of the LRC and a target deadline of May 14th has been set for the resolution of the bitter dispute which flared from unofficial disruptions to a complete close-down of the service in Dublin and counties Wicklow, Louth, Meath, Galway and parts of Co Cork.

The re-opening of post boxes, including 900 in Dublin, was expected to start this morning and normal service is expected by tomorrow week. Some companies have been holding back mail and one customer will put 750,000 pieces of post into the system. There is also a huge amount of international mail to be dealt with.