Mail and parcel deliveries in Ireland, including international items, have been severely disrupted by a postal strike that broke out last Friday.
Irish postal services have been impacted by the strike action by staff employed with IO Systems, An Post’s maintenance contractor, and working at An Post's four mail centres, caused by an ongoing labour dispute over pay cuts.
Since last Friday when the strike started, the Irish postal operator An Post has been accepting no parcels or mail from customers in or to Ireland including shipments from abroad. But despite the ongoing strike, post offices are due to open tomorrow with the mail backlog to be delivered, An Post reportedly said.
In an official statement on Friday, An Post advised customers “not to post any letters or parcels until further notice” and threatened that the “industrial action between IO Systems and CWU shuts down postal service”.
“Due to industrial action in mails processing centres by staff of supplier company IO Systems who are members of the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU), An Post greatly regrets to advise customers NOT to post any mail items, with immediate effect. Also, as a result of this industrial action, there will be no mail collections from businesses today, Friday. Due to the withdrawal of labour by staff of IO Systems, we are unable to process mail for delivery to customers.”
However, An Post stressed that mail deliveries were operating normally on Friday and only a small number of letters couldn’t be processed due to the industrial action. “An Post greatly regrets this inconvenience to our customers and urges the parties involved to resolve their differences through the normal industrial relations procedures,” the company added. Post Office retail services are operating as normal.
Royal Mail said its customers should be aware that there may be delays in sending items to and receiving shipments from the Republic of Ireland. Other Irish carriers have also been affected by the strike action.
John Tuohy, the CEO of Ireland’s largest independent delivery company, the Nightline Group, reckoned that even if the dispute took days rather than weeks to resolve, its effects would prove “unhelpful” to the delivery industry and the wider economy.
“Any interruption to deliveries – no matter how brief – can be extremely costly to the delivery sector and the companies or individuals who it serves,” he told CEP-Research. “The potential damage is not just confined to organisations in Ireland. Such is this country’s growing appetite for e-commerce, in particular, that businesses in the UK and beyond may suffer.”
Tuohy confirmed that Nightline has recorded stronger parcel volumes due to the strike as customers looked for other carriers than An Post to get their shipments sent.
“Even in the hours since the industrial action began, Nightline has already seen an increase in parcel volumes and I would expect other private carriers to see something similar. However, any uplift in business amounts to a short-term spike of unplanned-for parcel volumes rather than the more preferable sustainable growth,” he added.
“It is in everyone’s interests that this dispute is brought to a close as quickly as possible. After all, our economy needs a stable, fully-functioning national postal service as a key element of Ireland’s social and commercial infrastructure," Tuohy concluded.
According to media reports, An Post might consider issuing protective notices to some of its 9,500 staff members in the coming days if the strike action continues.
The strike action has been reportedly initiated by the 36 staff working at the An Post mail centres who maintain the sorting machines in a row around a new roster arrangement at the facilities. The CWU union in Ireland claimed the new arrangement would results in a loss of earnings for their members, who are in charge of the sorting machines.
A spokesperson for An Post stressed that the dispute concerns IO Systems and the CWU. “We call on them to cease this action and to use the channels available to them to resolve the dispute without any more impact on customers and on An Post business."
In turn, the CWU called on An Post’s management to “immediately withdraw its threat to shut down the National Postal Service and avert long term damage to businesses and the postal service itself.”
“An Post workers are not in dispute with the company. Workers who maintain the automated mail sorting systems at four An Post mail centres are in dispute with IO Systems in response to the unilateral imposition of rostering arrangements that cut their wages by 22%. The workflow in processing mail has not been interrupted and there are other ways to sort and process mail that normally goes through the automated systems. Approximately 40% of mail is sorted using the automated systems maintained by IO Systems. Parcel and packet mail are not processed through these systems and are therefore unaffected. The union has said its members will extend manual sorting as needed to ensure the continuing collection, sorting and delivery of parcel, package and other mail to current industry-leading service standards, and has written to the company to this effect,” the union stated.
In response to the union’s suggestions that much of the mail could be processed without the machinery, An Post countered that 80% of mail goes through the automated systems and that it cannot take on any mail due to the impact of the action.
Meanwhile, the CWU warned An Post’s executive leadership that closing the business and issuing protective notices to An Post’s 9,500 workers would be a ‘dangerous provocation’ and immediately result in a ballot on industrial action across the company.
CWU General Secretary Steve Fitzpatrick commented: “The decision of An Post management to shut down the postal system is a strange and reckless escalation of the dispute at IO Systems that will wreak havoc and long term damage to the National Postal Service. We can only surmise that the enthusiastic speed at which management has moved to shut down mail operations is confirmation of their prepared intentions designed to shore up and bolster the position of IO Systems.
‘Contingency planning’ at the company seems only extend to an attempt to gain advantage in an industrial dispute that doesn’t involve them instead of maintaining services and protecting An Post’s €850 million turnover business. We have written to the company setting out in detail how mail and parcel services can be maintained using current systems with extended manual sorting.”
“We are prepared to engage, as we always have, with IO Systems but we will not back down in the face of threats and unilateral action against workers at IO Systems, or An Post. We require that all workers at IO Systems are re-instated under their agreed terms and conditions,” he added.
