An Post workers have a Cushy Deal

ballooba · 03-11-2005 03:48PM #1

According to Central Statistics Office data, Postal Workers earn considerably above the average weekly wage for industrial workers and are among the best paid people in the country:

http://www.cso.ie/statistics/earnings_dist_business.htm
http://www.cso.ie/statistics/indearnings.htm
http://www.cso.ie/statistics/public_sector_earnings.htm

They also do pretty well compared to their Civil Servant buddies.

Tha Gopher · 03-11-2005 04:05PM

The postal service treat their staff well. My uncle was caught drunk or drinking on the job at least 3 times in his 20 odd years with them (on one occasion someone rang the HQ up to report his post van was parked outside a pub):D He was about the only working class alcoholic I know of who seldom had severe money trouble, in essence he could afford to be one, unlike all his mates whos kids starved etc etc

He also got robbed at gun point 3 times, so its not all its cracked up to be

audge · 03-11-2005 04:10PM

ballooba wrote:

According to Central Statistics Office data, Postal Workers earn considerably above the average weekly wage for industrial workers and are among the best paid people in the country:

http://www.cso.ie/statistics/earnings_dist_business.htm
http://www.cso.ie/statistics/indearnings.htm
http://www.cso.ie/statistics/public_sector_earnings.htm

They also do pretty well compared to their Civil Servant buddies.

Jesus, you would think the least they could do, for that amount of money, is deliver the fekcing post on time. I had to wait until 1pm for my CAO results, and I remember waiting until 2pm to find out if I had been accepted onto the degree course in college, by that stage I had actually convinced myself that I had not been accepted and this was the reason for the lack of post (seriously, my friends where txting my from 8 in the morning to inform me that they had got their acceptance letter) I was ready to murder the postman!!

Tazz T · 03-11-2005 04:14PM

I lived in the UK for 16 years and the postal service here is a joke in comparison.

No post on a Saturday - what's all that about?

Mossy Monk · 03-11-2005 04:21PM

it is a pain in the arse that we get no deliveries on a saturday

vibe666 · 03-11-2005 04:30PM

for a nice comparison, a friend of mine posted a CD to me from a village post office in rural Thailand last year. At the same time, he posted another CD to another mate in Cambridge.

Thailand to Cambridge = 3 days.

Thailand to Dublin = 16 days.

How's that for service?

And I live 5 minutes walk from the D2 sorting office.

In fact it's reguarly taken 2 weeks to receive stuff from the UK, inc. a wifi router I'm currently waiting for. will be 2 weeks on Monday.

Benster · 03-11-2005 04:34PM

And "Next Day" delivery might as well be renamed "Sometime..."

Standards are falling in the north, where I'm from, but they have a long way to go before they get to the current standard here...

RuggieBear · 03-11-2005 04:36PM

vibe666 wrote:

And I live 5 minutes walk from the D2 sorting office.

Where is that?

robinph · 03-11-2005 05:00PM

I got a letter delivered from the UK last friday, 28/10, that was postmarked on the 26/09!!!

Thing is that they can do things quicker when they put their minds to it, as I had another letter from the UK arrive on wednesday that was postmarked on monday. I'd already been emailing back apologising for not replying sooner, before I noticed that it had only taken a couple of days to get here though.

eth0_ · 03-11-2005 05:07PM

robinph wrote:

I got a letter delivered from the UK last friday, 28/10, that was postmarked on the 26/09!!!

A guy I work with is waiting on a book Amazon dispatched from the UK on October 18! He rang An Post customer services...and they say it's Royal Mail who are causing the delays! Bullsh*t!

I ordered some stuff from Amazon and had it sent to my sisters house in Belfast and it arrived the DAY AFTER it was dispatched.

I've ordered from play.com twice in the past two months and each time it's taken 2-3 weeks to get to Dublin.

Absolutely ridiculous.

I was in the GPO yesterday mailing some parcels and they were laughing and joking about going on strike. Why are they even striking? I'd love a job where I can do f*ck all work and get paid above the national average!

robinph · 03-11-2005 05:22PM

eth0_ wrote:

A guy I work with is waiting on a book Amazon dispatched from the UK on October 18! He rang An Post customer services...and they say it's Royal Mail who are causing the delays! Bullsh*t!

If its Royal Mail causing the delays then how would they explain two letters posted on the same day from Dublin to Galway, one took 4 days and the other took 2 weeks?

That could clearly only be the fault of Royal Mail and not An Post.

Rabies · 03-11-2005 06:57PM

eth0_ wrote:

A guy I work with is waiting on a book Amazon dispatched from the UK on October 18! He rang An Post customer services...and they say it's Royal Mail who are causing the delays! Bullsh*t!

...

I've ordered from play.com twice in the past two months and each time it's taken 2-3 weeks to get to Dublin.

I ordered a dvd from play at the start of september. 4 weeks later it still wasn't delivered. Play emailed me, Royal Mail never sent the dvd out of england. They held it for a while and sent it back to Play.
Made the same order with the Sendit the next day. Myh dvd arrived in the door 7 days later

Ardent · 03-11-2005 07:18PM

Here's a good one, kind of related:

I sent a letter to myself by registered post (don't ask). A couple of days later, after I came home from work, I found a leaflet stuck in my letterbox instructing me to collect at my nearest post office. Only got a chance to go down a couple of weeks later and yer man told me they didn't have it because they don't keep stuff after 2 weeks or so.

I asked him where it might be now and he told me it would have been sent back to the sender. I told him I was the sender and that really f**ked him up!

He couldn't tell me where it might be now and gave me a number to ring. Thank God it wasn't that important!

cormie · 03-11-2005 07:25PM

Ardent wrote:

Here's a good one, kind of related:

I sent a letter to myself by registered post (don't ask). A couple of days later, after I came home from work, I found a leaflet stuck in my letterbox instructing me to collect at my nearest post office. Only got a chance to go down a couple of weeks later and yer man told me they didn't have it because they don't keep stuff after 2 weeks or so.

I asked him where it might be now and he told me it would have been sent back to the sender. I told him I was the sender and that really f**ked him up! He couldn't tell me where it might be now and gave me a number to ring. Thank God it wasn't that important!

Trying to copyright something by any chance?

Enough of the bad stories, you're making me worried, I've 3 things on order from the UK, 3 seperate senders and one from the US too.

segadreamcast · 03-11-2005 07:29PM

eth0_ wrote:

A guy I work with is waiting on a book Amazon dispatched from the UK on October 18! He rang An Post customer services...and they say it's Royal Mail who are causing the delays! Bullsh*t!

I ordered some stuff from Amazon and had it sent to my sisters house in Belfast and it arrived the DAY AFTER it was dispatched.

I've ordered from play.com twice in the past two months and each time it's taken 2-3 weeks to get to Dublin.

Absolutely ridiculous.

I was in the GPO yesterday mailing some parcels and they were laughing and joking about going on strike. Why are they even striking? I'd love a job where I can do f*ck all work and get paid above the national average!

Glad someone else brought this up - I ordered a book on October 15th, still waiting on it! Normally, in all fairness, it arrives within 3 days... however, I'm just pretty disgusted at An Post right now. Fair enough, if you're gonna go on strike, go on strike...but don't screw around with the post for a month before your strike to make it seem as though you're understaffed...

projectmayhem · 03-11-2005 09:53PM

i'm a regular interweb buyer so i'm all too aware of an posts misgivings. i got 2 books today that were dispatched from amazon about 2 weeks ago. it's a complete and utter joke

jimmycrackcorm · 04-11-2005 01:14AM

Mossy Monk wrote:

it is a pain in the arse that we get no deliveries on a saturday

Think positive - no bills at the weekend.

Nightwish · 04-11-2005 01:18AM

in Kilkenny the An Post workers have been demanding a new sorting office, as the one in the town is too cramped and not very accessible, so a new depot was built for them approx 1km from town and they refuse to move into it as they want "disturbance money"

embee · 04-11-2005 02:31AM

eth0_ wrote:

Why are they even striking? I'd love a job where I can do f*ck all work and get paid above the national average!

Sigh... it would be great if you actually knew what really goes on in An Post, instead of spouting this sort of nonsense.

My dads a postman. Has been for the past 26 years. He deserves to be paid a decent wage for what is hard work. Its not "f*ck all" work whatsoever. He works 8am to 6pm five, sometimes six days of the week. They're understaffed, but An Post have a recruitment freeze in place. He is currently doing the work of 2 postmen on his own. His day is a hectic one. He sorts all morning (there are supposed to be sorting staff but again, they're severely understaffed), then he delivers parcels to businesses in town (he is a rural postman, and his round is exclusively in the countryside, but again, they haven't enough staff). Then he goes on his round. Doesn't get out on his round until after midday. His rounds a pretty long one, has been made longer by An Post in the last year (again, short staffed). He finishes at 6pm everyday. He doesn't have time to take a lunchbreak, instead he pulls his van over halfway through his round and takes a 10-15 minute break to eat his lunch. If he were to take a lunchbreak, he'd be even later finishing in the day. An Post expect their employees to do overtime, but don't want to pay them to do it. In addition, whilst after the last dispute which took place they were promised that they would be paid backdated cost of living increases (which they're entitled to, everyone else in the country gets them), An Post still haven't budged on this. They now want to change their rosters to bring them in line with more modern practices, but are refusing to pay them what they are entitled to be paid. Postal workers in Dublin earlier in the year received letters saying that their jobs had been relocated to the Midlands, effective 1 week from the issue date of the letter. If they weren't prepared to uproot their whole families to the Midlands, they would find themselves seeking alternative employment.

They're striking because An Post refuse to pay them under the Sustaining Progress Agreement. Those pay increases are mandatory, but they have been waiting over 2 years to get them with no joy. Their argument is - why should they agree to new working rosters when their employer won't pay them a mandatory pay increase?

Nephew · 04-11-2005 02:48AM

vibe666 wrote:

for a nice comparison, a friend of mine posted a CD to me from a village post office in rural Thailand last year. At the same time, he posted another CD to another mate in Cambridge.

Thailand to Cambridge = 3 days.

Thailand to Dublin = 16 days.

How's that for service?

And I live 5 minutes walk from the D2 sorting office.

In fact it's reguarly taken 2 weeks to receive stuff from the UK, inc. a wifi router I'm currently waiting for. will be 2 weeks on Monday.

my friend went to india when we were in 4th,5th or 6th class (i'm guessing it was sometime between 1994 -1997) and sent me a postcard. it took a while to reach ireland but it eventually got here, in january 2005.

Rabies · 04-11-2005 09:06AM

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

Think positive - no bills at the weekend.

What about the business people that need cheques to arrive in the post every day to pay bills

cormie · 04-11-2005 09:41AM

Just got an A4 sized letter through the post that was sent from England. It wasn't any of the 3 items I ordered from England online at the weekend, which were posted on Monday, it was something else which was posted on Wednesday:rolleyes: I really don't want to be waiting around much longer as one of the things was bough from a non established Ebay seller.

godtabh · 04-11-2005 10:11AM

embee wrote:

Sigh... it would be great if you actually knew what really goes on in An Post, instead of spouting this sort of nonsense.
QUOTE]

That maybe so but proganda is spouted by bought sides so its hard to tell fact from fiction.

embee wrote:

He works 8am to 6pm five, sometimes six days of the week.

There is no such thing as a 9-5 job any more. Ask an Engineer on site how many hours he/she works. Most if any wouldn't get over time. I've worked jobs were I worked 12 hours a day for weeks on end to meet deadlines.

embee wrote:

They're striking because An Post refuse to pay them under the Sustaining Progress Agreement. Those pay increases are mandatory, but they have been waiting over 2 years to get them with no joy. Their argument is - why should they agree to new working rosters when their employer won't pay them a mandatory pay increase?

The pay increase isn't mandatory. It can be refused under the Sustaining Progress Agreement if certain targets for work ouput arent reached. An Post say there arent. I wont get a pay rise for doing the same job. If I increase productivity etc then my work will be rewarded. As many people have said An Post provides a poor service. Why should poor service be rewarded?

I personally think the unions have got to powerfully arent relevent in this day and age. I havent been in a union in years and will never join one again. But unions put ideas in peoples heads things get out of control. Irish Rail DART drivers threaten to strike over longer DARTs unless they are paid more. Nonsense. An Post workers wont move to better sorting office unless they are paid. Nonsense. ESB workers paid to work in a non working power station. Nonsense. Unions are to militant and they are the blame.

Try working in the private sector with this attidtude and see how far you get.

Improve the service expect a pay rise.

No improvement no pay rise.

RedorDead · 04-11-2005 11:04AM

I cant see there being any sympathy with An Post workers from the general public for a strike. There may be a quick about-turn just like the dart drivers when they realised they had zero support outside of their union.

skywalker · 04-11-2005 11:09AM

If strike action goes ahead will post offices still be open this afternoon? Also I know theres a post office on Baggot st but Im not sure where exactly, can anyone point me in the right direction?

ballooba · 04-11-2005 11:11AM

embee wrote:

Sigh... it would be great if you actually knew what really goes on in An Post, instead of spouting this sort of nonsense.

My dads a postman. Has been for the past 26 years. He deserves to be paid a decent wage for what is hard work. Its not "f*ck all" work whatsoever. He works 8am to 6pm five, sometimes six days of the week.

If I knew your dad I'd welcome hime to the real world. I'm quite junior in my work so I am not yet expected to work those kind of hours but most of the people around me do.

embee wrote:

They're understaffed, but An Post have a recruitment freeze in place. He is currently doing the work of 2 postmen on his own. His day is a hectic one. He sorts all morning (there are supposed to be sorting staff but again, they're severely understaffed), then he delivers parcels to businesses in town (he is a rural postman, and his round is exclusively in the countryside, but again, they haven't enough staff).

The work of two men by An Post standards or by the standards of the workload most people have?

embee wrote:

Postal workers in Dublin earlier in the year received letters saying that their jobs had been relocated to the Midlands, effective 1 week from the issue date of the letter. If they weren't prepared to uproot their whole families to the Midlands, they would find themselves seeking alternative employment.

I wish they would do this more. It would be a great way of getting rid of some An Post people. It is notoriously difficult to sack civil servants. Also another thing you mentioned if An Post workers feel they're getting such a bad deal then why can't they do like the rest of us and change jobs. DHL, TNT, Interlink, GLS. Oh wait, then they would have to do real work.

Tazz T · 04-11-2005 11:12AM

I recently received a cheque that had been posted a year ago from a business ten minutes walk away that I did some work for.

The abuse I gave them last year when they said they'd already posted it. :rolleyes:

It had been posted when they said it was. Another time someone phoned me saying they had found a open letter in the street with a cheque in it made out to me.

Do postmen just throw around the letters they don't feel like posting?:eek:

vibe666 · 04-11-2005 11:16AM

RuggieBear wrote:

Where is that?

here on Cardiff St. (spot the little green vans!)

bounty · 04-11-2005 11:23AM

let them go on strike, who ****ing cares? they are crap anyway

then, while they strike, abolish anpost's monopoly, and create a rival private sector post service, no more pesky union bull****

Shabadu · 04-11-2005 11:32AM

It's funny how it's always the ones who haven't got a clue that are the first to witter on about the postmen: "dey do no werk whatresoever and me mail is alwayes laet"

Did you ever stop to consider that the reason your mail is late is because they are hideously understaffed, and the reason they are paid above the national average is because they are doing the work of two people?

Also, the concept of a National Average wage is spurious when you consider how many lackeys on minimum wage are factored in. People working in the Postal service tend to be lifers, and career people get paid more.

DonkeyStyle \o/ · 04-11-2005 11:42AM

Wow, being a postman sounds cool, where do I sign up? (seriously)

An Post workers have a Cushy Deal

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