Strike threat remains despite apparent truce, writes Chris Dooley, Industry and Employment Correspondent
A truce may be in the air in the bitter dispute between An Post and the Communications Workers' Union, but the threat of a post-free Christmas remains.
Relations between the two sides, already antagonistic, if anything worsened during five days of talks last week with the National Implementation Body.
The NIB is made up of experienced industrial relations practitioners from the Government, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the employers body, Ibec.
There is little its members have not seen - and helped to solve - in the way of apparently intractable industrial disputes.
Even they were taken aback, however, at what one person present described as the "naked hostility" between the management of An Post and the leaders of its biggest union.
So while the peace formula put forward yesterday may have bought some time, there remains little optimism that the two sides are ready to do a workable deal.
Nevertheless, it was still quite an achievement for the NIB to engineer even the week-long reprieve that has emerged from the weekend's discussions.
The talks, which began on Wednesday, focused on what the CWU has identified as the "four major stumbling blocks" which have prevented it from accepting a Labour Court recommendation on major work practice change.
The first was what the union calls the "divisive" decision to alter the conditions of service of collection and delivery staff, while other workers in An Post retain their entitlements.
The altered conditions include changes to leave entitlements, reductions in holiday pay and a removal of the right of postmen and women to apply for and hold particular delivery routes and duties.
A decision to treat management pay and structures differently from those of other workers was cited as the second stumbling block. The third was "the decision to award lesser pay and pension entitlements to post-persons", compared to other staff. The fourth concerned productivity levels required by the company during high- pressure work periods.
The main focus of the National Implementation Body over the past few days was to try to establish what it would cost the company if it was to meet the union's demands in these four areas.
When management indicated it would cost €20 million, the CWU referred the NIB to the minutes of a board meeting of An Post on September 29th. On that occasion, the company estimate was "up to €10 million". The company then returned to the NIB with a further set of figures - shown last night to The Irish Times - which estimated that the cost of the union's demands could be as high as €32 million.
A company source said the difference between the €10 million estimate in September and the €20 million put to the NIB last week was that the union had included additional demands.
This was rejected in the strongest terms last night by CWU national officer Seán McDonagh.
In any case, the NIB suggested the best way forward was for an independent assessment to be carried out, with a view to establishing precisely what it would cost to meet each of the union's specific concerns.
CWU representatives agreed on Friday evening to defer industrial action if this proposal was adopted. Why it took until yesterday afternoon - too late to call off the strike that began at midnight - is unclear.
An Post chief operations officer Larry Donald said last night the CWU was wrong to claim that the company had rejected the proposal on Saturday before doing a U-turn and accepting it yesterday.
The company had received no proposal of any kind from the NIB until yesterday, he said. However, the union referred to the proposal in a press statement issued at 1.15pm on Saturday, after talks had broken down.
Against the odds, the NIB succeeded in restarting the talks, but the threat of a damaging postal strike remains.