An Post silent on union claims of delivery delay

An Post last night refused to confirm or deny claims from the Communications Workers' Union (CWU) that only 71 per cent of post is being delivered the day after posting.

Quarterly figures, to be sent to the Communications Regulator (ComReg) by An Post today, will show that the company is falling far short of its target of 94 per cent for next-day deliveries, the CWU claimed yesterday.

The figures for the second quarter of the year had "dropped drastically" from 76 per cent in the first quarter because of the recruitment embargo imposed by the company, CWU spokesman Joe Guinan said.

The closure of the manual sorting offices and their replacement with four "automated hubs" had also slowed the service.

A spokeswoman for An Post said the postal workers' union was attempting to undermine the company and gain support for industrial action.

"I will not be responding to the CWU's unsubstantiated claims which are being used purely as a vehicle to insult management and bolster support for their unnecessary industrial action."

The union last week decided to ballot on industrial action over its claim that An Post has failed to honour national pay agreements.

It has accused the company of failing to pay postal workers and pensioners cost-of-living increases due under the Sustaining Progress national agreement.

The union has rejected a Labour Court ruling that linked pay increases due under the agreement to cost savings that would affect 4,500 delivery workers among the CWU's 8,000 members at An Post.

The ballot will remain open until October 21st.

While An Post says it does not comment on the figures it supplies to ComReg, the quality of service "is not as it should be", its spokeswoman said.

"There is no doubt that we have to improve the quality of service, but we're never going to do that unless we get the necessary changes in practice."

She said the CWU was deliberately using figures out of context in an attempt to discredit the service. "They are plucking figures to suit their own means, taking them out of a whole raft of statistics that An Post delivers to ComReg.

"The CWU is being completely inflexible, refusing to change working practices . . . forcing the company to operate a sub-standard service. They rejected, not An Post's recommendations, but the Labour Court's recommendations, and instead are balloting for industrial action and launching their drip-drip attacks on all of us."