Bpost services remain disrupted on Wednesday morning, the postal company has said. The delivery of mail and parcels is mainly affected in the Brussels-Capital Region and Wallonia.
In Brussels, no deliveries will take place on Wednesday due to blockades at distribution centres. In Wallonia, fewer than 50% of deliveries will be made. In Liège, some distribution centres are also being blockaded, while picket lines are also in place in Charleroi, Fleurus, Nivelles, La Louvière, Boussu and Binche, amongst others.
Flanders, however, is only marginally affected by these disruptions: nearly 91% of deliveries will go ahead on Wednesday.
The strike at Bpost began spontaneously at the end of March and has been ongoing since then, as staff opposed the planned restructuring of parcel and mail delivery.
'Progressing slowly'
The postal company's management announced last Thursday that an agreement had been reached on the restructuring plan, but the unions had made it clear that this proposal still needed to be put to staff for consultation. The workers, therefore, continued the strike action.
Management and the unions met again on Monday evening. The company put forward a proposal to the unions, which are currently consulting their members on this basis.
"Discussions are progressing slowly. Some postal workers have returned to work, whilst others have not yet done so," notes Thierry Tasset, General Secretary of the CGSP Poste.
Management hopes that the final negotiations with the unions will lead to an agreement before 30 April.
As a result of the strike, a large number of letters and parcels could not be delivered. As the volumes involved are substantial, they are being stored at Bpost’s buffer sites.
This is the case, for example, in Gosselies near Charleroi, where hundreds of thousands of parcels and millions of letters are awaiting delivery. "They are being stored there safely and under optimal conditions. The mail will not remain there a day longer than necessary," a Bpost spokesperson said earlier.
