An Post work to rule re-instated

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday October 31, 2002 23:49 by Paul Kinsella - CPSU paulkinsella53 at yahoo dot com 53 Lorcan Grove, Santry, Dublin 9, Eire 087 - 9748511

An Post work to rule re-instated

Following the breakdown of negotiations between the Civil and Public Service Union (CPSU) and the management of An Post, the work to rule that we as members of the CPSU engaged in, and that had been suspended, as matter of good faith for a number of weeks to allow the negotiations to take place, has been re-instated as of last Wednesday week, October 23RD.

Following the breakdown of negotiations between the Civil and Public Service Union (CPSU) and the management of An Post, the work to rule that we as members of the CPSU engaged in, and that had been suspended, as matter of good faith for a number of weeks to allow the negotiations to take place, has been re-instated as of last Wednesday week, October 23RD.

Basically what the work to rule involves is: No co-operation with the planned move from College House to the GPO Dublin (Which is part of An Post's attempt to save a miserly €1 million a year by closing College House!), No co-operation with any re-location of offices within the GPO Dublin connected with the proposed re-location from the College House to the GPO, No co-operation with any workplace changes in An Post, and finally no co-operation with the introduction of any new technology in An Post.

Some of us got literally caught in the eye of the storm when the work to rule was re-introduced last week. A group of us in Irish Stamps/Philatelic Marketing were due to move last Wednesday from the 2ND Floor in the GPO down to the Ground Floor in connection with the moves from College House, but just as we were about to move with all our boxes packed we got notification from the CPSU that the work to rule had been re-instated so we're staying put for the moment, but the more senior members of staff are members of the Public Service Executive Union who are not in dispute with An Post, so they moved downstairs as planned last week leaving us to man the fort upstairs.

All that the CPSU is demanding is for the abolition of some of the lower grades of pay in An Post, which sees a Clerical Assistant (CA) like myself starting out for the first time with An Post, starting out on the totally insulting wage of €305 Per Week Before Tax for a 34.75 Hour Week, which would result in a relatively modest additional pay increase of 12.5%. What the management of An Post proposed to us was totally unacceptable. They wanted to increase our working week from 34.75 Hours a Week to 37.5 Hours a week, slash our 'Flexitime' from 10 days to 6 days a year, and ban all overtime amongst other measures. Needless to say to say the CPSU Negotiating Committee immediately suspended the negotiations as it was quite clear that the members would never accept these types of measures and the management of An Post simply walked away from the negotiations and there are no plans for any further negotiations at present. Judging by the well attended general members meeting held in Wynn's Hotel, Abbey Street at lunchtime today most of the CPSU members are determined to see our pay increase implemented without the kind of strings attached that the current regressive and backward prospals proposed by the management of An Post would entail us suffering. So Christmas or no Christmas and even with the ever present threat of suspension of CPSU members by the management of An Post for non co-operation people are determined to see this through to the bitter end.