29.10.09 - Further industial action
Jersey Post’s General Manager of Postal Services Andy Jehan said they were implementing their contingency plans to mitigate the impact on the Island.
‘This is not a three day national strike but three days of separate actions starting today in all mainland mail processing centres and network services. Tomorrow the industrial action will be localised to collections of mail in London and finally, on Saturday, the dispute will hit all UK delivery offices. We are doing all we can but this action is beyond our control,’ he explained. ‘Once the action is over we will be working hard to ensure that any delayed mail we receive from the mainland is delivered as quickly as possible. To assist us in this we advise our customers that, as always, it is important to ensure that they use the correct address and post code. Correctly addressed mail speeds up the sorting process and gets mail into our posties hands as quickly as possible.’
Although Jersey Post is independent from the UK postal service, the Island relies on Royal Mail to deliver and collect mail to and from the UK. Mr Jehan said in spite of this week’s protracted talks breaking down between the Royal Mail and the Communications Workers Union, they remained hopeful that both parties would reach an agreement and prevent further action from happening.
Jersey Post expects to have cleared any backlog of inbound mail over the weekend with local deliveries returning to normal by Monday. As mail bound for the UK and beyond leaves the Island already sorted for delivery this mitigates the impact of today’s action. Nonetheless, Jersey Post is expecting a reduction in the amount of mail arriving tomorrow morning in Jersey for local delivery.
‘In the meantime our advice remains the same: post as normal, or as early as possible in case a resolution is not found and any further planned action is taken. Following the reinstatement this week of the guarantee on Special Delivery, we recommend that time sensitive items of mail are posted by this service” Mr Jehan said.
Jersey Post is maintaining a constant dialogue with its major customers and is keeping the Island community informed of developments as informed by Royal Mail.
Jersey Post will issue further information as and when it is available and apologies in advance for any inconvenience to customers. Regular updates are being posted on this website as they become available.