Management at An Post yesterday defended its approach to industrial relations in response to stinging criticism by union leaders and members of an Oireachtas committee.
Members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, the Marine and Natural Resources expressed outrage at the company's actions after hearing from a delegation of union leaders.
In a presentation to the committee, unions accused the company of an "appalling industrial relations record", and claimed they had had no difficulties with the company until the present management took over in 2003.
Mr Eoin Ronayne, of the Civil, Public and Services Union, claimed management behaved "like a bunch of marauding animals", and had no respect for third-party industrial relations mechanisms.
Mr Seán Ó Riordáin said he had been general secretary of the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants since 1987, but had never met a management like the existing one at An Post.
"When I go into An Post it's like going into a black hole. It's a parallel universe, and the one thing you know is that time will stand still."
Mr Steve Fitzpatrick, of the Communications Workers' Union, who led the union delegation, said postal staff earned basic pay of €440 per week, while pensioners who had 40 years' service were paid half of that.
Yet they were being denied a cost-of-living pay rise because of An Post's refusal to pay increases due under Sustaining Progress, which applied to pensioners as well as staff.
Mr Fitzpatrick was asked by the committee chairman, Fianna Fáil TD Mr Noel O'Flynn, to outline when he had last met the chief executive of An Post, Mr Donal Curtin.
Mr Fitzpatrick replied that just prior to his appointment as general secretary of the CWU last July, he had met Mr Curtin, and told him he hoped they could do business. Mr Curtin had replied that so did he, had shaken hands and clapped him on the back. "I haven't seen him since."
Mr Curtin later told the committee he believed he had met Mr Fitzpatrick in September.
Mr O'Flynn said committee members were "alarmed and amazed" that the parties did not seem to be talking to each other.
Mr Curtin said that, on the contrary, senior management representatives had spent seven months negotiating with the CWU at the Labour Relations Commission last year.
There was a need to change work practices within the company's mail business, which had remained unaltered for decades. The issues involved were now due to be heard by the Labour Court on February 7th. "We're in the final stages of the process, and we hope we can get a resolution soon," he said.
Labour TD Mr Tommy Broughan said that in his 13 years as a deputy he did not remember a group of workers giving such an "appalling account" of the manner in which they were being treated. "I'm just flabbergasted, and I think the rest of us are too."
He also accused the company of telling "a pack of lies" to the committee two years ago when it had projected a profit in 2003 of €1 million, which had later turned into a €43 million deficit.
Fine Gael TD Mr Bernard Durkan said he presumed those who had made the initial projection had been "fired instantly, and possibly retrospectively as well".
Mr Curtin said those who had made the initial projection were "no longer active within the company". The meeting was adjourned until February 23rd.
