This article is from page 17 of the 2005-11-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 17 JPG
A KILLALOE man has lashed out at a situa- tion wherein he would have to make a 30 mile round-trip to drop off sick certs in the the event of a postal strike.
With the strike looming last week, the De- partment of Social and Family Affairs wrote to Tom Clifford, telling him that he would have to drop his sick certs to the nearest department office.
‘“That’s in Limerick — a 30 mile round trip for me’’, said ‘Tom.
While the Killaloe man was stunned to hear that a trip to Limerick City was the only way
he could send his cert in, he was even more shocked to learn that to collect any money, he would have to “go to my nearest welfare of- ficer on the day after I would normally be paid. I’m supposed to be paid on Friday but the wel- fare officer only sits in Killaloe for a couple of hours mid-week”.
And while some recipients of disability ben- efit might be able to have payments made di- rectly into their bank accounts, Tom says this is not an option for him or the many others who have building society accounts.
“Tt can take up to 11 days for money to clear with the building society and the department
won’t pay into credit union accounts,” he said.
“It’s the usual story — a Dublin department thinks nothing exists outside The Pale. There’s no thought about how something like this af- fects people in other areas.”
There were delays following yesterday’s strike action, which went ahead as it was too late to inform Communications Worker Union members that pledges had been given.
The action was taken on foot of the com- pany’s refusal to implement the full terms of Sustaining Progress to the union’s 8,500 mem- leo uce
Having suffered heavy losses for several
years prior to 2004, it pleaded inability to pay the terms of the national agreement.
While workers did get a five per cent increase in January as recommended by independent as- sessors, they have been due to receive a cumu- lative total of more than 13 per cent. Another contentious issue 1s company plans to imple- ment major changes in its operations.
On Sunday night, the national Implementa- tion Body persuaded An Post chief executive, Donal Curtin, to back off from his refusal to have an independent assessment of the cost- ings on which the Labour Court had previously based a peace formula.