Its not that I'm overtly anti-union, I do think they have their place, and it's not that I entirely disagree with what the CWU are protesting about. In fact, while I don't like strikes, sometimes its the only way to make a company listen. We've endured some silly strike action in Ireland but I've seen nothing of the kind we saw last week.
An Post is not a very successfull company right now, hemoraging over €40 million a year and being slated in every review they underog. In a desperate effort to improve they invested in automation tools which would make the sorting process faster and cheaper. This means they might have had a chance of making their 94% next day delivery target instead of the 64% they struggle for at the moment. An improvement in service can only mean good things for a company which is under siege from the likes of UPS, FedEx and most noticeably, the internet.
However, the union had other things in mind. Because of the strenght of the union, and last weeks strike emphasised this, the company has some of the most backward labour practices seen in this country. As the Sunday Times revealed:
In one sorting office in the southwest of the country, staff have to be paid overtime for handling postcards during the tourist season. Even though clerks often have ample time to do the task during normal working hours, they will only process postcards if they get 3½ hours of overtime.
In Dublin, collection-van drivers must be paid 3½ hours extra every time they collect a package not included on their original roster, no matter how little time the additional pickup takes. The drivers will only collect from the front entrances of buildings — never the side or the back.
These practices have resulted in some employees earning large amounts of overtime on top of their usual daily rates, even though they work less than the standard shift of 7½ hours.
One Dublin-based postman, earning a basic wage of €23,000 per annum, was able to take home a further €57,000 in overtime last year. He was one of 226 employees in An Post earning basic salaries of less than €25,000 who received more than €50,000 in overtime payments in 2003.
With practices like this, its hard to see how An Post can survive in an increasingly competitive market. A lot of people will have rethought their communications infrastructure last week during the strike. With no international mail entering or leaving the country and no business mail in large chunks of the country, there'll be quite a few managers evaluating the usefulness and reliability of An Post as a partner in their business.
This week however, sees the gradual return of a postal system to Ireland but even now the union are being acting like the belligerant child who has won an argument and is determined to let everyone know it. At a time when a lot of people are deeply unhappy at the damage they caused last week, the union are once again refusing to acknowlodge the weight of public opinion. Instead of trying to help mop up the mess created by last weeks spill, they are out to rip the company off even more money, by refusing to allow An Post to hire temporary workers to clear the backlog.
The postal dispute has taken another twist, with the Communications Workers Union objecting to An Post's decision to hire 200 casual workers to clear a backlog caused by recent staff suspensions. The dispute appeared to have been resolved when both sides agreed to resume talks last week. An Post subsequently reinstated all suspended workers at its Dublin mail centre and said it was planning to hire 200 more temporary staff to clear the backlog caused by the suspensions. However, the CWU has claimed this breaches existing agreements stipulating that any casual or temporary staff must be hired for a minimum of seven months, except over the Christmas period. The two sides are due to meet this morning to discuss the matter
The next few weeks will be vital in An Posts future. If they can withstand the Union and install some realistic labour policies, the company might survive the next decade without having to leech money from the state every year. If they cannot, it is hard to envisage them remaining a player in the communications market, particularly with certain parts of the country being opened to competition which is not obliged to fulfill a Universal Service Obligation.