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Comments (17 of 17)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17Why should taxpayers bail out your company when it is your own lack of work ethic, restrictive
practices, overmanning etc that have helped land it in the mess in the first place? SDS was a joke with an appalling absenteeism record. It couldn't compete with private sector companies
that were far more efficient. You are unlikely to get what you want as there are now strict EU rules on the amount of subsidies that can be given to state-owned firms. The reality is that snail mail is on the way out. Witness this site. Only the most efficient companies involved in handling snail mail will survive, and An Post is not one of them.
Agreement on modern practices is important as is the cost of requiring the post to be delivered daily up every boreen in the country-and a delivery may be just a piece of junk mail.
One-off housing is often an issue that gets a public airing but the cost of providing a service such as the post where there is no local property tax system, seldom merits attention.
There must be a huge cost-benefit in using mail boxes. With the phone system available in the remotest of areas, the argument that the postman can look out for older people may only be of relevance in some cases. But shouldn't that be a responsibility of a good standard social service?
Well it's name in spanish is "el cartero", don't know what it is in english. It stars Kevin Costner in a future post apocalyptic "mad max" USA. It opens with him tellingly press-ganged into the slave army of a Klan type organisation led by a suspiciously Scottish (Stuart king) looking authoritiarian monster. All the Klan have the number 8 on their shoulder, are tatooed and _follow orders_ whilst their leader quotes Shakespeare.
Then Costner escapes, and finding his old postman uniform, begins to deliver the mail. The young kids (who can not remember beore the apoclypse) adore him, and begin delivering mail as well, from one mad max village /settlement to the other, all the time running the gauntlet of the Klan militia.
One settlement is "led" by village elder Tom Petty, ("I used to be famous"). In the end Costner wins the war in hand to hand combat with the Klan leader. Everyone is happy, american and free. It's a wonderful movie, complete propaganda and american patriot stuff set in the mountains of Montana, and for some reason gets an airing on Spanish TV almost every three months. Maybe because as it's theme it focuses on one of those "essential services" which we all to often forget express our modernity.
Their civilisation ends because they can't communicate beyond their valley. And at that point the militia (who are very real) take over, in full knowledge that their power will only last as long "normal service is not resumed".
I doubt if An Post dies, that militia types will crawl out from under rocks the length and breadth of Ireland, nor that true patriotic Tom Petty/Kevin Costner types will volunteer, rather I'd make the educated guess that the German BundesPost will buy out An Post and you'll have yellow postboxes, and a more efficient service...without any hint of super Quinn.
:-)
ISME wants public sector job cuts:
http://www.rte.ie/business/2004/1026/isme.html
for a postman,
but its way too long.
Could those draft letters in the main article
have been posted seperately as comments?
Dáil Éireann 27th October 2004
Joe Higgins (Socialist Party): An Post employs up to 8,000 workers and is a crucial service reaching every corner of this State. Not only is it crucial for business, it also involves the delivery of millions of items of personal mail, as will be demonstrated in the forthcoming Christmas season. In addition, by common consent, An Post has other crucial dimensions involving both the postal service and a social service in many regional towns, villages and remote parts of the country. The importance of this service is underlined by the fact that when these services are threatened, public representatives, including many Government Deputies, raise a ferocious clamour. Happily, in the past, they have had some success in preserving these services. The problem is, however, that the Government will not fund this crucial service.
In 2002, the Flynn report spoke of considerable financial pressures if the proper level of investment was not forthcoming for the postal service, yet An Post was awarded a paltry €12 million to facilitate some post offices transferring services to an agency basis. One of the worst aspects is that An Post's staff and pensioners are now being called upon to subsidise the service in which the Government will not invest. They have not received increases under Sustaining Progress, including workers earning less than €18,000 per annum and SDS workers who face 274 job losses following a unilateral decision.
It has been revealed in the House today that the Government allows millionaires get away without paying a penny of tax. Since 2001, the Government has robbed the elderly in their nursing home beds, yet now the Taoiseach wants to leave low-paid workers in An Post to pay for the crucial services it provides. All in all, the Taoiseach looks like a neo-liberal embodiment of that harsh warlord in the Christian gospel whose motto was, "To those who have, more will be given and from those who have little, even that will be taken away". I am not posing an industrial relations question to the Taoiseach. I am asking him about his overall investment policy for An Post.
Finian McGrath (Independent): Hear, hear.
The Taoiseach: A few years ago, the Flynn report listed several recommendations that are being implemented. If I recall correctly, they were also paid for in terms of staff remuneration and allowances so that the report's recommendations could be undertaken. Over the years, we have taken significant steps to modernise the postal service, including updating its technological automation.
Over the past 18 months, talks have continued between An Post management and trade unions to agree on the full implementation of the Flynn report. I acknowledge that An Post's staff did not receive the payments that were given to everybody else. They did not receive the benchmarking awards as the talks went on because of the company's financial position.
The changes concerning post offices, which involved moving uneconomic entities onto an agency basis, have continued. These discussions are continuing. We all want to see the postal network being maintained but it must be done on an efficient and modern basis. That was the subject of the Flynn report's recommendations, whose implementation is a matter for the management and workers to resolve by agreement.
J. Higgins: Is An Post and its workers now to be treated in the same way as Aer Lingus which is another publicly-owned company that was milked for advantage when it suited the State and successive Governments and then starved of investment at the same time, with workers obliged to carry the burden through sackings and a deteriorating service and the tax-paying public to suffer the effects of cutbacks? What are the principles under which the Government approaches the postal service? Does the Taoiseach agree there is an important social element in An Post's service and that, therefore, it is not simply a question of the profitability of every single unit or area?
The Taoiseach: The answer to the first question is "Yes". If it was not so and that the Government did not see it as a good social service, we would not have continued over the years against considerable competition and opposition, including challenges in Europe over giving An Post large amounts of the social welfare business and any other business we could find, to keep the social element of it and to try to get some kind of economic viability into the service.
I believe the Deputy will acknowledge, as I do, that it is not the fault of An Post workers but that technology has changed the situation for them. They have been losing in excess of 6% on letter post alone based on the last figures I remember when talking to social partners some time ago about the matter. They have also been losing quite substantial parts of their core business in other ways because of texting, e-mailing and other technology. That has undermined to a great degree the viability of the postal service. However, in spite of that in recent years we have invested approximately €100 million in technology infrastructure. Admittedly a large part of that went on the sale of PostGem, its dotcom company, which was re-invested to provide the services. An Post is trading in a difficult position and the Government, board and trade unions need to help it through what is a fundamental change in how people do business in the modern world.
According to RTE's Business News, the CWU has warned of "total chaos in the run-up to the key Christmas period, if talks between An Post management and unions at the company fail to reach agreement."
CPSU page content updated
Primitive African tribes used drums to communicate with each other while American Indians used smoke signals.
We Europeans stole the idea of paper from the Chinese and used it as a wrting material.
The domesticated horse and the wagon and then the locamotive along with the sailing ship and the steamer allowed mail to be sent great distances.
Since the end of the 19th century the telegraph allowed electronic communication and the development of the telephone has allowed instant audio communication that began the decline of the postal medium.
Now that we have in the 21st century we have the internet with which to send email.
We have private delivery companies who specialise in parcel deliveries such as DHL and FedEx among others..
An Post is a state run company that is losing money providing a service that technology has largely over taken. It will continue to make a loss into the future as customers vote with their feet.
Naturally when An Post ceases to opporate jobs will be lost but demanding to keep it running for the sake of the employees is absurd and immoral.
Imagine if typewriting companies were subsided by the state even though we live in the age of the PC just so people could remain employed.
Labour should be employed where it is more productive - maybe the guys in An Post could try to get jobs working for internet service providers or other modern communication companies?
"Labour should be employed where it is more productive - maybe the guys in An Post could try to get jobs working for internet service providers or other modern communication companies?" Yeah in crappy jobs performing effectively slave labour for crap wages and non-unionised (workers would get sacked for even daring to join a union). I know people that work in these companies. Perhaps you own one of these internet service providers 'Rick'? Amazing if you put a certain letter in front of your name you get a good description of what you are.
Do people not realise An Post is alot more than a person bringing letters to your door?
Think what you would lose if that village landmark was taken away. And as for moving into the modern...cant really see my granny sending me an e-mail any time soon...should we leave people behind just for the sake of progress and because a profit cannot be made.....oh thats right, were a nation of capitalists now
ok eh, so the Postal Service as I understand it has or atleast as this feature is asserting is a public service, does the phone system have the same aspect and if not what the difference...
An Post has to change to survive bailing out an organisation that is not provding the service effeciently is just a waste of tax payers money. All this argument to bail out the Post Office beacuse it is more than just people delievering letters is rubbish people are just being nostalgic for something that was never that good in the first place.
I personally haven't used An Post in a long time. I do all my bill paying online and letter writing(even to gran it's not that difficult). I don't think i'd actually notice if an post disappeared in the moring, i never got many birthday cards anyway.
What is it with the likes of you and 'Rick' that you only care about yourselves, a selfish I'm alright Jack mentality and to hell with everyone else? Even leaving aside for a moment the workers in An Post and their families and dependents what about the elderly and the disabled many of whom don't have family members to care for them. What are they supposed to do if their local post office closes? Starve? Be cut off from the outside world by not being able to post letters and not having their local postman deliver their mail to them especially if they also try to force through scrapping door to door deliveries as well and forcing people to collect their post from post boxes which in many cases down the country would involve a trip of several miles? For many elderly and infirm people the local postman is often the only contact they have with the outside world. Coming back to the workers why should they be punished for the gross mismanagement of the previous An Post management which; and I suppose I have to be very careful here; which to many appears to border on fraud and deception? Remember that we're talking about people's (mostly not well paid) livelihoods and those of their families and dependents here. Why is it 'Ush' that when the likes of you and 'Rick' are not having it your own way you resort to threats like the one that 'Rick' had made earlier on but which was removed? Is it because your agenda is bankrupt?
'pc' you were asking earlier should the phone service be treated the same as An Post (i.e. as a Social Service) and the answer is yes. Again for many of our eldery and infirm; for those that have a phone the phone is often together with the postman and the local post office their only contact with the outside world.
so the post is only for the old?
Can be obtained by clicking on this link http://www.Ireland.com/newspaper/finance/2004/1117/2582154303BZMAIL.html
Although it just mentions it as a CWU press conference it was in fact organised by the An Post group of unions. btw. pc infirm can also mean people who are disabled and/or in wheelchairs and can be young or old. Should have clarified that more initially:-(
CWU press release re Employee Directors
The full press release is as follows:-
Thursday, 18th November 04
AN POST WORKER DIRECTORS TELL AN POST CHAIRPERSON THEY ARE SEEKING LEGAL ADVICE OVER BASIS OF SDS CLOSURE DECISION
Three worker directors at An Post have told the Communication Workers' Union that they have contacted board chairperson, Ms Margaret Mc Ginley, to inform her that they are seeking independent legal advice concerning the basis of the decision of the Board, taken in July to close the SDS (An Post Parcel Division).
The three directors, Pat Compton, Jerry Condon and Paddy Davoren have jointly written to An Post's chairperson to advise her that "we have decided to seek legal advice in regard to our position following the decision of the July Board meeting to re-integrate the SDS."
The directors have decided on this course of action following an independent review of the financial information that underpinned that SDS closure decision that was commissioned by the CWU and published earlier this week.
The Worker Directors expressed grave concern to the CWU that their duties, responsibilities and rights as directors may have been comprised as a result of disturbing revelations of new information by an independent firm of auditors following their review of the SDS finance and forecast information presented to the board.
Following the new disclosures, the worker directors believe it is incumbent on them to protect their integrity and to ensure that their fiduciary duties were properly discharged. The three men told Ms McGinley "We are taking this course following the release of certain financial information by the Communications Workers Union. This appears to cast doubt on the accuracy of the financial information upon which the Board made its decision and is a matter of serious concern to us."
Ends