Fri Nov 4, 2005 8:12 PM GMT
DUBLIN (
Reuters) - Ireland is bracing for a major strike likely to severely disrupt postal services after talks between unions and management over pay rises failed to produce agreement on Friday.
Workers at state-owned An Post will strike from midnight on Sunday, threatening disruption to business and welfare payments throughout the country.
An Post are withholding pay rises due under a national agreement unless structural changes are accepted by delivery workers. The Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents around 9,000 post office workers, says this is unfair.
It said there would be a complete ban on overtime as part of the industrial action as well as complete stoppages at the main post office in Dublin and other centres around the country.
The last major dispute at the postal service was in 1979 and lasted five months. In the 12 years up to 2003, no days were lost to industrial action.
Postal workers staged a one-day strike in December last year in protest at the closure of the postal service's unprofitable parcel delivery service with the loss of 270 jobs.
Communications Minister Noel Dempsey cancelled a trip to Washington earlier this week to broker talks between An Post management and union leaders in an attempt to head off industrial action.
