The trouble at An Post is explored in questions and answers by Chris Dooley, Industry and Employment Correspondent.
Q: What is the dispute about?
A: The immediate cause is a row over work practices at the Dublin Mail Centre in Clondalkin, where more than 500 staff have been suspended by An Post for refusing to carry out management instructions.
Q: But there are other issues in the background?
A: Yes, some of them going back to an agreement signed between the company and its unions, called Transformation Through Partnership (TTP).
Since then, there have been a number of rows between An Post and the union representing the vast majority of staff, the Communications Workers' Union (CWU), over how that agreement should be interpreted and implemented.
Q: What were the main elements of the TTP?
A: In return for a 3 per cent pay rise, lump sum of £1,500 and a 14.9 per cent stake in the company - through the establishment of an employee share ownership plan (ESOP) - workers were to deliver "major change" in a number of areas, including the completion of a major automation programme.
For the company, a key element of the plan was the need to eliminate a "culture of overtime". The overall aim was to create savings of £27 million a year.
Q: Did the TTP deliver the expected results?
A: No, because it has never been fully implemented. Both sides in the current row accuse the other of failing to honour their commitments.
In the meantime, the financial position of An Post has deteriorated drastically. It is now losing €600,000 a week, the Minister for Communications, Mr Dermot Ahern, said yesterday.
Q: What about the overtime problem?
A: It remains a major drain on finances. According to An Post, a typical postman earns about €40,000, of which €17,000 is overtime. It claims much of the overtime claimed is not "real" but has effectively become part of basic pay.
The CWU disputes this, saying the overtime levels reflect a huge and growing workload on delivery staff. Whichever side is correct, the company currently spends €500,000 a week on overtime on letter post operations in Dublin alone.
Q: What is the company doing to address its losses?
A: Last year, it drew up a recovery plan, designed to reduce its operating loss this year to €30 million, from €46 million last year, before achieving break-even next year. The plan aims, by negotiation, to reduce staff numbers in the letter post division by 1,350. That section currently employs nearly 6,000.
Q: What was the CWU's response?
A: Negotiations began in November, but broke down before Christmas. Then the company announced it was pleading inability to pay the 3 per cent pay-rise due to staff under Sustaining Progress since November. The union said it would not re-enter talks until the company agreed to pay the increase.
Q: What happened then?
A: The union balloted its members for industrial action in relation to two issues: the company's alleged failure to implement "pay and reward" elements of the TTP; and the Government's failure to introduce legislation allowing for the establishment of the ESOP.
Members voted by a six-to-one majority to strike. The union has delayed implementing the action. But CWU members have been involved in unofficial disputes in Drogheda, Mitchelstown and Co Galway. These have disrupted deliveries for nearly two months.
Q: What caused the present crisis?
A: An Post made it known last week that it intended to introduce a new sorting system in Dublin. It says it has invested €100 million in four automated hubs, including the Dublin Mail Centre, and needs to start getting a return on its investment.
Under the new system, post would be sorted at the mail centre rather than, as is currently the case, by staff doing overtime at local delivery offices. An Post says staff at the centre have been using the machinery involved in the new system for a year. When they began refusing to operate it at the weekend, it had no option but to suspend them.
The union says staff had been using the machinery for training and testing purposes only, and there had been no agreement on introducing the new system, which has "serious repercussions" for jobs in delivery offices.