Nearly all postal workers on strike

25 May 2007

BRUSSELS – Most cities will not be receiving any post today as postal workers participate in a general strike. It will not be clear until later in the day how many post offices are actually open.

Work was stopped last night in sorting centres for Flanders, Ghent and Antwerp. “This means that no letters were sorted. Postal workers who do decide to work will have less to deliver. Possibly just the newspapers and whatever letters were left over from earlier,” says Lieve Van Overbeke of the ACV trade union.

Some post was sorted in Brussels last night. The strike there is being divided over two days: some night shift workers went on strike Thursday night, others will strike on Friday night.

Some 85 to 100 percent of postal workers in West-Vlaanderen, Antwerp and Limburg are participating in the strike. The percentage is even higher – 95 to 100 percent – in Vlaams-Brabant and Oost-Vlaanderen.

Needless to say, management at De Post is not happy about the action, especially with negotiations already planned for next week.

Subject: Belgian news