Monday’s industrial action by 600 postmasters and mistresses looks likely to go ahead with no talks scheduled between the sides.
Negotiations between An Post management and staff representatives collapsed last night without resolution.
The one-day industrial action involves contract postmasters and postmistresses opening their premises two hours late at 8 a.m, and not accepting delivery of mail from central locations until after 8 a.m.
According to the Irish Postmaster’s Union (IPU) this would delay deliveries of mail to customers and could delay delivery of CAO offers to school-leavers.
The IPU are in dispute over allowances for early morning work which they claim are insufficient. They also say staff are not paid at all for some other duties.
A spokesman for An Post said the precise nature of the action would not be clear until Monday afternoon and this was hampering efforts to provide a contingency plan.
He added that the company expected contract employees to honour the terms of their working agreement.
An Post expect rural centres to be more severely inconvenienced by the disruption than urban areas.
