An Post strike looming

readytosnap

And there was me waiting for my U2 tickets to be delivered, What am I gonna do now?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Is the concert not at the end of November? Very early to be fretting yet.

readytosnap

Soren Tangy Redneck wrote: »

Is the concert not at the end of November? Very early to be fretting yet.

You could be right about freeting early, but the prospect is not looking good in An Post with some suit digging his heels in on an ego trip, and the management starting the heavy handed routine and sending staff home unnecessarily. smells like it could escalate big time.

delahuntv

It will be sorted within a few days. CWU know they're on a loser after refusing numerous recommendations from various bodies.

The stupidity of their action that has put livelihoods of hundreds of other CWU members at risk and i know of two that are extremely pissed off at CWU and have made their views known to cwu managers.

slimjimmc

Contact Ticketmaster and ask if you can collect them at the venue, they may not be posted yet.

readytosnap

delahuntv wrote: »

It will be sorted within a few days. CWU know they're on a loser after refusing numerous recommendations from various bodies.

The stupidity of their action that has put livelihoods of hundreds of other CWU members at risk and i know of two that are extremely pissed off at CWU and have made their views known to cwu managers.

CWU have no spine

dudara

Let's avoid the politics of this and focus on the Consumer Issue

dudara

slimjimmc

Mod: Thread title changed as it suggests the strike is by An Post employees.
The strike is by employees of IO Systems, a maintenance contractor to An Post.

readytosnap

dudara wrote: »

Let's avoid the politics of this and focus on the Consumer Issue

dudara

ok

slimjimmc wrote: »

Mod: Thread title changed as it suggests the strike is by An Post employees.
The strike is by employees of IO Systems, a maintenance contractor to An Post.

I thought I said looming? the IO systems people are already on strike, I was referring to An Post employees, like I said it is looming, as a result of the IO systems employees dispute escalating and the CWU's response and advice to the An Post employees. Hopefully I am wrong, but only time will tell and from what I've seen and heard so far the outlook is bleak. I think the thread title was correct, now it is not.

slimjimmc

Mod: Fair enough, original thread title restored.

I wonder if Social Protection can make alternative arrangements for those who get their payment in the post?

dave ireland

Any word or updates on the post strike, All internet and telly news are Fridays information.

readytosnap

dave ireland wrote: »

Any word or updates on the post strike, All internet and telly news are Fridays information.

CWU have sent a circular around to staff thanking them for standing up to An Post management despite their (management) attempts to intimidate them, Telling all An Post members to report for duty as normal however there has been no movement ( by management) on the situation and as it stands it is heading in the wrong direction (escalation) none of the mail centre employees want this to happen. :mad:

Demosthenes

Any updates? I have a heap of stuff to post as soon as possible...

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

readytosnap wrote: »

CWU have sent a circular around to staff thanking them for standing up to An Post management despite their (management) attempts to intimidate them, Telling all An Post members to report for duty as normal however there has been no movement ( by management) on the situation and as it stands it is heading in the wrong direction (escalation) none of the mail centre employees want this to happen. :mad:

Why are An Post management the bad guys when IO are the staff and management in dispute?

adelcrowsmel

I saw one guy on the news last night saying that parcels&packets could be processed - does that mean they are or did he just mean it was possible. I am waiting on a parcel from the UK that was posted Friday and I'm finding it very hard to get information anywhere on what's happening.....if anyone has any insight?!

Impetus

An Post need to fire IO Systems as maintenance contractor for breach of contract and get another company to do the job and replace IO, post haste.

The incompetent An Post board is allowing the country to return to the 1970s and 1980s of strikes. The country had (long - often 6 month+) bank strikes, electricity supply strikes, postal strikes etc, that crippled business and daily life.

Third world undependable / unreliable Ireland reveals its ugly side again in 2015.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Impetus wrote: »

An Post need to fire IO Systems as maintenance contractor for breach of contract and get another company to do the job and replace IO, post haste.

The incompetent An Post board is allowing the country to return to the 1970s and 1980s of strikes. The country had (long - often 6 month+) bank strikes, electricity supply strikes, postal strikes etc, that crippled business and daily life.

Third world undependable / unreliable Ireland reveals its ugly side again in 2015.

A bit harsh. Undependable because of one dispute in decades? Really? The over-reaction on Boards has been almost comical. Wait until it's in it's second week rather than second day and we'll see real meltdown.

As for sacking IO, I agree but it depends on the terms of the contract. Also, they couldn't just employ a new company today. Tenders, agreements, contracts etc take time, you know.

Oh, just got post! Including a book and a cheque I had been expecting. Happy days.

readytosnap

Soren Tangy Redneck wrote: »

Why are An Post management the bad guys when IO are the staff and management in dispute?

Because they are refusing to let the regular sorters sort the mail manually, that would of gone through the machines. An Post want this strike so they can use it as a case for future redundancies, mark my words.

rubadub

slimjimmc wrote: »

Contact Ticketmaster and ask if you can collect them at the venue, they may not be posted yet.

This is what usually happens if tickets are lost in the post, they cancel the first ones so they are detected by the barcode. You usually have to bring a CC or photocopy of the CC that paid for the tickets as proof and you collect at the box office, just like people who ordered for box office collection.

Though there might be huge queues.

pinkypinky

There was a quite long strike in 2004 - I remember because I'd just started a new job, and it was very quiet without post. Went on a few weeks, with intermittent deliveries.

dave ireland

TV 3 news said its now sorted so I hope I can post in the morning.

IO just restored things back to the original roster while talks are on-going.

jippo nolan

Soren Tangy Redneck wrote: »

A bit harsh. Undependable because of one dispute in decades? Really? The over-reaction on Boards has been almost comical. Wait until it's in it's second week rather than second day and we'll see real meltdown.

As for sacking IO, I agree but it depends on the terms of the contract. Also, they couldn't just employ a new company today. Tenders, agreements, contracts etc take time, you know.

Oh, just got post! Including a book and a cheque I had been expecting. Happy days.

Did you get a pen?
"Blankety blank"

Impetus

Soren Tangy Redneck wrote: »

A bit harsh. Undependable because of one dispute in decades?

I don't think it is too harsh. You have under 30 people on strike, who work for IO - a Japanese company. It is holding An Post customers and staff to random. The strikers are reportedly earning EUR 70'000 to 100'000 pa.

The parcel facility sorts 100'000 parcels a week from memory - much of this is online shopping. If An Post is seen as an nu-reliable logistics provider, Deutsche Post and their DHL arm will quickly take the business from online merchants. This would have implications for An Post employees. Not to mention the letter post and everything else that goes through the post (eg passports, bank payment cards, medical documents, etc.

There are several other companies who could take over the task of maintenance of the automated sorting platforms. There is a lot of wear and tear on a sorting machine that can process 30'000 letters an hour.

There are only four of these sorting factories, and these guys have a grip on the system that needs to be released by force if necessary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo6vG5RutYs

BunkMoreland

Google cancelled my order saying with reason "Undeliverable". Must waste my time now reordering.

Shower of overpaid gob****es should be all sacked.

rawn

BunkMoreland wrote: »

Google cancelled my order saying with reason "Undeliverable". Must waste my time now reordering.

Shower of overpaid gob****es should be all sacked.

Yes, that would help to get the post to your door

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

BunkMoreland wrote: »

Google cancelled my order saying with reason "Undeliverable".

That makes no sense whatsoever.

DivingDuck

Soren Tangy Redneck wrote: »

The over-reaction on Boards has been almost comical. Wait until it's in it's second week rather than second day and we'll see real meltdown.

Wait for the second week? Some people quite simply do not have two weeks to wait around for the things they needed to be posted/delivered last week, much less this week.

This has caused massive stress and disruption to some people's lives and businesses. The level of reaction I've seen has seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

slimjimmc

BunkMoreland wrote: »

Google cancelled my order saying with reason "Undeliverable". Must waste my time now reordering.

I doubt that has anything to do with the dispute. If mail isn't getting sorted then it's sitting in mail bag somewhere and An Post won't be returning it to the sender (they'd have to sort it to do that), so how would Google know if it was "undeliverable".
More likely the package fell foul of the regs http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2011/act/21/section/47/enacted/en/html#sec47 or there was a problem with another carrier.

BunkMoreland wrote: »

Shower of overpaid gob****es should be all sacked.

Mod: Less of this type of comment

DivingDuck

slimjimmc wrote: »

I doubt that has anything to do with the dispute. If mail isn't getting sorted then it's sitting in mail bag somewhere and An Post won't be returning it to the sender (they'd have to sort it to do that), so how would Google know if it was "undeliverable".
More likely the package fell foul of the regs http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2011/act/21/section/47/enacted/en/html#sec47

I don't know anything about Google, but if they deliver to their Irish customers with An Post, they may have suspended purchases with an Irish address temporarily rather than try to arrange an alternative delivery service.

It would make sense, considering that there was/is no way to know how long this interruption of service could last. If it was only a few days, it wouldn't really be worth it to them to set up with an alternative when they could just refuse the transaction and then email the customer when service resumed with the standard "You didn't buy this, would you still like it?" email. If it lasted longer, they could make alternative arrangements and then do the same thing.

Impetus

slimjimmc wrote: »

I doubt that has anything to do with the dispute. If mail isn't getting sorted then it's sitting in mail bag somewhere and An Post won't be returning it to the sender (they'd have to sort it to do that), so how would Google know if it was "undeliverable".
More likely the package fell foul of the regs http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2011/act/21/section/47/enacted/en/html#sec47 or there was a problem with another carrier.

I don't know what Google has to do with shipping - but Amazon or any similar company will not be shipping merchandise that does not comply with "regulations". The only merchandise Google ships is phones and similar, and they just recently removed their boycott against Ireland for this category. https://store.google.com/ Happy with the tax rate, but like Apple and many others cut from this cloth there are no "Apple stores" in IRL.

uck51js9zml2yt

Strike is over for now

delahuntv

readytosnap wrote: »

Because they are refusing to let the regular sorters sort the mail manually, that would of gone through the machines. An Post want this strike so they can use it as a case for future redundancies, mark my words.

No, it was the cwu who told their members in an post not to do any additional manual sorting and not to work any of the sorting machines being managed by management of io systems.

Eg the cwu union was using other workers as pawns in their duspute. Disgusting, but that's how underhand unions can be sometimes.

carltonleon

delahuntv wrote: »

No, it was the cwu who told their members in an post not to do any additional manual sorting and not to work any of the sorting machines being managed by management of io systems.

Eg the cwu union was using other workers as pawns in their duspute. Disgusting, but that's how underhand unions can be sometimes.

Incorrect. It was An Post management who did not allow a manual sort to happen and who closed the post down. CWU and workers were quite happy to manually sort.

uck51js9zml2yt

I wonder if there is a non performance penalty Claus in the IO/AP contract ?

Impetus

Colby Full Vinyl wrote: »

I wonder if there is a non performance penalty Claus in the IO/AP contract ?

There is almost certainly an SLA (service level agreement). And that would imply a redress clause in the event of service levels not being met.

delahuntv

carltonleon wrote: »

Incorrect. It was An Post management who did not allow a manual sort to happen and who closed the post down. CWU and workers were quite happy to manually sort.

CWU issued a written notice on Friday afternoon to all of its members in An Post NOT to work any machines that are being maintained by management of IO systems and not to manually sort any mail that would normally be handled by the auto sort systems.

Impetus

carltonleon wrote: »

Incorrect. It was An Post management who did not allow a manual sort to happen and who closed the post down. CWU and workers were quite happy to manually sort.

While manual sorting is better than a total switch off of the service, the system has been totally centralised over the past 20+ years, focusing on four sorting plants in Athlone, Cork, Dublin, and Portlaoise. It would be a massive task - but one would have a similar issue in the event of EMP damage - when post would be the only form of communication - to the extent that the packets could be moved. It will push large shippers of mail and parcels to look again at alternatives. Given the low population density in many parts of the country, and the lack of a proper addressing system for every building (the poorly designed, re-invent the wheel, non-standard "Eircode" is not the answer to this - in fact the contrary given the way that the code has been randomized to make it totally non-human friendly), the economies of scale do not exist to support multiple postal service providers.

It seems to me that the board of An Post has been negligent in the way it has allowed IO to monopolise their sorting network, and harvest the monopoly, and the entire board should consider its position. Every system / company needs a plan B (and perhaps C).

carltonleon

delahuntv wrote: »

CWU issued a written notice on Friday afternoon to all of its members in An Post NOT to work any machines that are being maintained by management of IO systems and not to manually sort any mail that would normally be handled by the auto sort systems.

All other mail could have been manually sorted including Passport Express, Reg and Express items. Incoming International Mail could also have been manually sorted. An Post management made a decision that these would not be manually sorted and issued the 'Do not post Anything' which basically closed it all down.

dave ireland

From what I take from the 6 oclock news ,its not over yet, their just talking.

They have been doing that for over two years with no results, I hope Santa Claus is geared up to received emails.

delahuntv

Impetus wrote: »

It seems to me that the board of An Post has been negligent in the way it has allowed IO to monopolise their sorting network, and harvest the monopoly, and the entire board should consider its position. Every system / company needs a plan B (and perhaps C).

Plan B was management of io systems to do the work and keep it running. CWU made sure that plan B or any plan c,d or e was not going to work by telling ALL cwu members not to co-operate with any non union back up plan and not to operate or work on any post that used any machinery being maintained by management of io systems.

Only after cwu realised the anger of their own nom io systems members did they very quickly agree to talk and call off their badly planned gamble.