An Post blames postal pile-upon workers

THE postal pile-up in Limerick took a new twist last night with An Post laying the blame on disgruntled workers.

An Post said they will be taking the Communications Workers Union back to the Labour Court because of the level of resistance by its members in Limerick to a deal on automated sorting approved by the court.

Tens of thousands of letters were again left undelivered in Limerick and a number of other parts of Munster yesterday.

Postal workers claimed that problems arising from the new automated sorting system would last into the foreseeable future.

Letters from Limerick, Clare, Kerry, Waterford and Cork are now automatically sorted at a new centre in Cork’s Little Island. The new arrangement came into effect at the weekend.

An Post claimed that the delays in Limerick and other parts of Munster have been caused by some staff taking a “coloured” view of the new automated sorting system because some had lost huge overtime earnings.

Anna McHugh of An Post said the situation in Limerick was exacerbated by some workers taking “unscheduled sick leave.”

She said: “The new system takes some time to bed in and the situation is not as bad as they would lead you to believe. We apologise to our customers for the delays and want to assure them we are working night and day to get this new system working as it is elsewhere.”

She said the new system had been introduced with the agreement of CWU and approved by the Labour Court.

An Post, she said, plan to return to the Labour Court next week due to the actions of CWU members in Limerick.

Spokesman for the CWU in Limerick Joe Collopy said claims by management about unscheduled sick leave were scurrilous.

He said: “There is no sick leave involved. The problem is that up to 50,000 items of mail arrived in Limerick from the new sorting centre Cork at 6.15am this morning and the night staff who were to sort them out went off duty at 6.45am and most of it was left there undelivered.”

Mr Collopy said it would take up to four hours to process that amount of items once it arrives in Limerick before being delivered to the address.

Mr Collopy said there were 8,000 items of mail left undelivered in Ennis yesterday.

“It’s chaos and getting worse,” he said.