ongoing postal dispute
I finally found a newspaper article which explained, more or less, why the current dispute occurred. In essence: the union promised some things to management in exchange for some extra pay. One of the things promised was a cut in overtime. As soon as the extra pay had been handed over/agreed upon/whatever, the union reneged on its side of the deal. Things kinda proceeded from there. This comes back to something I've always felt about the unions in this country; they're a necessary evil, like many other parts of working life, but because the country is so small, a single twitch by any given union can bring useful services to a halt, and that's something that they seem quite willing to abuse. Through the overtime system currently in place with An Post, it's possible for a postal worker to do a morning delivery shift, finish early because hey, there's not much to deliver, then come in and do an afternoon shift and get payed the overtime rate for that. Now, it may well be that the pay is crap, and that this is a necessary ploy to get a living wage, but seriously. I have no doubt that management would rather trade the overtime culture for a properly structured wage system that can at least be properly budgetted for. Apparently the union doesn't want that.