The strike at bpost continues after staff rejected a new proposal from management.
As a result, the blockades at sorting centres in Brussels and Wallonia will remain in place on Monday. According to bpost, the situation is untenable and new negotiations are being urged. The strike, which has been going on for more than a week now, has led to a huge pile-up of parcels. According to the French-language channel RTL Info, around 800.000 parcels are now stuck in the sorting centres of Liège (Awans), Charleroi (Fleurus) and Brussels.
without success
On Friday, a five-hour conciliation meeting was held between unions and the management of bpost. This consultation was initially constructive and resulted in a draft agreement. The unions promised to present this agreement to their members, and there was hope that this would put an end to the strike.
However, on Friday evening it became clear that the staff had rejected the proposal en masse. The union front announced that the strike actions would continue on Monday. “The discontent among the staff is enormous,” stressed Olivier Tasset, representative of the unions. Despite the rejection of the agreement, the unions remain open to consultation with management, although they make it clear that the demands of the employees must be taken seriously.
The coming days will be crucial for both management and employees. If no solution is found, the strike risks dragging on even longer, resulting in even more delays in mail and parcel deliveries.
Bpost regrets the situation and urges the national unions to come back to the negotiating table. Spokesman Mathieu Goedefroy emphasizes that the management is prepared to continue negotiations as soon as possible. "We call on the national unions to come back to the negotiating table with a clear mandate from the local constituency," he declared Friday evening.
Furthermore, Goedefroy indicated that the management was still prepared to talk this weekend, to prevent further escalation. "The current situation cannot continue," he warned.
court orders
The management of bpost has legal means at its disposal to lift the blockades. Court orders have been obtained to dismantle the picket lines, but it is still unclear whether the company will use them. "We are considering it," says Goedefroy.
Meanwhile, the pressure on bpost continues to increase. Customers have been waiting for days, some even more than a week, for their orders. Companies that depend on bpost services are also suffering from the strike. The strike mainly affects Wallonia and Brussels, but also has an impact on postal and parcel services in the rest of the country.
