Following a meeting yesterday with senior Royal Mail representatives People Before Profit Cllr Shaun Harkin said,
"There's no doubt privatisation of the company and ownership focus on profiteering is coming at a great cost to residents and workers. I welcomed the opportunity to meet with senior Royal Mail officials to discuss concerns raised by its Derry workforce, trade union representatives and constituents.
"Royal Mail confirmed an investigation into bags of dumped mail is taking place. I urged Royal Mail to make sure workers aren't unfairly scapegoated for longstanding failures by the company to ensure mail delivery is actually feasible and for the alleged actions of a single individual.
"In a previous response, Royal Mail insisted mail delivery problems were down to workers on sick leave.
"It's not acceptable for the company to blame workers for the problems they have failed to address. For example, during the Christmas period last year Royal Mail was forced to bring in 30 workers from England on an emergency basis to the Great James Street sorting office. This cost Royal Mail tens of thousands of pounds in travel, hotel and food bills in addition to wages and incentive pay for the workers brought in. This expenditure could have covered the yearly salaries of several full-time workers.
"Royal Mail claim they are aiming to increase recruitment but existing pay and conditions undermine this goal. Instead of improving pay for its permanent workforce, Royal Mail appear to be utilising staffing agencies with much higher hourly pay rates on offer.
"This practice will damage workplace cohesion and undermine the creation a larger more stable workforce. It appears to be the case that new recruits are being sent out on the job with very little training, oversight or proper grasp of what being a postie involves and entails.
"Despite the assurances I was given, it's not clear if Royal Mail bosses care about the longer-term implications of their actions.
"There is no doubt the privatisation of Royal Mail has had disastrous consequences for workers and mail delivery.
"Workers are being pressured on the job with growing surveillance, heavier workloads and a more punitive environment.
"The company policy appears to be geared towards systemic underming of the Universal Service Obligation to deliver letters.
"The new boss is squeezing as much profit out of each and every worker with pay levels just above the minimum wage, with no regard for the timely delivery of letters.
"The actions of Royal Mail ownership has resulted in tremendous uncertainty for workers and residents, leading to the demand from the Communication Workers Union for government to once again bring it under public control.
"Regarding Derry, Royal Mail officials gave assurances they are doing everything they can to investigate dumped mail, address capacity issues, resolve the concerns of workers and ensure all letters are delivered on a timely basis.
"However, similar assurances have been given in years previous.
"Privatisation has failed, public ownership is the only way we can ensure delivery of critical mail and fair treatment of workers is prioritised over profiteering."