Postmasters to continue dispute 'indefinitely'

The Irish Postmasters Union (IPU) yesterday said they intend to continue industrial action indefinitely in their dispute with An Post.

According to the union's general secretary, Mr John Kane, postal deliveries in many rural areas could be one-and-a-half days late by the end of the week.

Since yesterday morning, the 600 IPU members contracted by An Post to run rural post offices have refused to accept postal deliveries from central locations before 8 a.m., two hours later than normal. In addition, postmasters will no longer supervise and assist in mail sorting, the union said.

Mr Kane said services in some areas were held back by up to two hours yesterday. Longer delays are expected today. "Deliveries will be an average of two to three hours late today, and there will be a cumulative effect," he said.

"There have been cases of postmen and women going out on their run without all the mail, because it hasn't been sorted in time. This mail is building up and by the end of the week there will be a day-and-a-half delay in deliveries."

However, An Post said its services were disrupted in "a very limited way" yesterday. "Deliveries took place as normal. They were just later than they would normally be," a spokesman said.

IPU claims that deliveries would be significantly delayed by the week's end were simply not true, he said, and the mail would continue to be sorted, delivered and processed as normal.

There was just one sub-post office where mail was not delivered as normal yesterday, the spokesman said. There was no letter service from Ballyshannon post office in Co Donegal although packages and parcels were delivered. He was confident that normal service would be resumed there today.

Mr Kane said he was pleased with the success of the industrial action so far. The union had already achieved one of its aims, he said, that of "getting rid" of the mail sorting responsibilities, which were now being undertaken solely by An Post workers.

The union was now concentrating on the pursuit of an increase in pay, he said. Postmasters had been paid €2 an hour for supervising and assisting in mail sorting. The IPU is seeking €42 an hour for sorting duties and for post offices opening before 8 a.m.

"An Post will have to face reality and face up to the fact that our claims have been outstanding for a considerable length of time."

An Post has pointed out that the contracted postmasters had already got pay increases of 37 per cent in 1997, 6 per cent in September, 2000 and 12 per cent in January, 2001. They would also be receiving a 15 per cent increase in October, backdated to September.

Talks to resolve the dispute broke down last Thursday. An Post's spokesman said there were no plans for their resumption. "We already had 11 hours of discussion with no progress," he said.

The spokesman assured customers that special arrangements had been made to ensure the delivery of CAO college offers in all areas today and, he stressed, the action was only affecting rural post offices.

Mr Kane said the IPU was happy to learn "some other system" would mean students would get CAO mail today, but he said its continuing action would be "fairly traumatic" for other rural dwellers.