Please refer to previous circulars issued in connection with the above on 15th March and 13th April. The purpose of this circular is to ask all members to make one final effort to get as many union members, their families and members of the Irish public to sign the Petition as possible.

To be absolutely frank the response from Postal Branches and our members on the postal side of the Union has to date been extremely disappointing.  The up to date situation on Liberalisation is that the European Parliament intends to begin the debate on the Postal Services Directive on 8th June 2007.  If the Directive is passed without any significant changes it will mean that in effect from 1st January 2009 An Post will no longer keep any monopoly, which presently through cross subsidisation, pays for the delivery of services to provincial Ireland.  Already, in Countries where postal liberalisation has been introduced before the January 2009 deadline, it has resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs which have been replaced by a smaller number of jobs with competitors to the postal system but which pay in many cases below the minimum wage for part time and temporary employment and is deemed as precarious employment under EU jargon. 

The impact of the Postal Directive in those circumstances will be severe and will impact on every member of the Union who works with An Post.  The EU Directive will allow high volume customers and utilities to send their mail directly to the Delivery Office and shortly thereafter to actual delivery route level.  This process, commonly known as “downstream access” will see the majority of business mail bypass the Mail Centres and the Driver network and will ultimately cost job losses at Mail Centres and driving jobs within the distribution network.  At that stage the only option for An Post will be to increase prices or reduce services.  Both options will lead us into a downward spiral which will further impact on jobs, pay and conditions. 

Each member needs to understand that if the An Post’s core business of collecting, processing and delivering mail is impacted adversely, it will have negative implications for every single An Post employee.  We need to remind ourselves that the An Post operation is highly integrated and that each part of the business is dependent on the Company’s core business.

There will be little point in the future complaining about pay and conditions in An Post if there is not sufficient mail there to support the employment that we have presently.  This is the final opportunity for each and every one of you to ensure that our employment is protected now and into the future and it is not a time for leaving necessary actions up to other people. 

The Union will not be in a strong position to defend your pay and conditions if they are to be changed by European and eventually national legislation. 
              
Therefore the NEC has decided that the petition, both in hard and soft copy form, will remain open until Friday, 18th May at which time the petition will be collated and sent to Europe for presentation to the Parliament.  To that end, the Executive expect that for the next two weeks all Branch Secretaries will use their Branch Secretary’s release to communicate with and co-ordinate all members in their branch to ensure they themselves, their families, their neighbours and as many members of the public as possible have either signed the petition physically or online. 

The Executive have also asked that Counter Clerks selloptape a copy of the petition to their counter position and ask every single customer to sign.  It would also be useful if Branches could get volunteers to set up petition tables outside their Post Offices.  While it is accepted that Postpersons cannot knock at all of their customer’s doors, it should be possible through the course of their duty to pick up numbers of signatures from people they meet on the road or from establishments where members of the public may congregate such as schools, colleges, sporting/recreation centres etc.

The CWU has had a proud history and tradition in the past of gaining public support in our hour of need.  There is no doubt in my mind that the present Postal Directive is the biggest single threat to your livelihood which we have faced in my almost 35 years of membership of this Union.  It is also the single biggest threat to the postal service that we give to our customers and our communities and it is absolutely vital that they are made aware of the probable outcomes of that Directive.  To that end, in addition to the Petition Campaign we will be issuing all of the branches with information packs and reports which we hope you will use in order to inform your community of the threat which the postal service faces.  It will also be used to force your local Politicians to declare their position on the run up to the upcoming election. 

The Union, in conjunction with its European affiliates, will be involved in further actions in order to highlight our plight and I beseech each and every one of you to make one final effort over the coming weeks to ensure that our voice is heard.

Enquiries from members relating to the above should be referred to Ian McArdle