The meeting was called on Saturday after a bomb hoax, said by many to have been an excuse, led to a lock-out of all employees at the Central Mail Room. This, in turn, led to a quick meeting and to the union suspending the industrial action in view of the meeting scheduled for yesterday.

The meeting started at 10.30am yesterday morning and continued till early in the afternoon but unfortunately no agreement was reached. As a result, the union and an action committee of people representing the Maltapost employees met yesterday evening to discuss possible industrial action which can be taken in the circumstances. The committee decided to re-evaluate the situation today.

Last Friday, the union increased directives for Maltapost workers after the company’s management, once again, tried to defy the union by acting as strike breakers. This made the union furious and a two-hour total strike was called yesterday morning.

Union section secretary Jesmond Bonello said 13 members of the company’s management went to the Central Mail Room in Marsa and started sorting letters which have not been processed for a number of days since the Maltapost workers were following directives issued by the union.

On Saturday morning, the union increased the directives for all Maltapost workers. The directive then included a ban on overtime, no collection from all letterboxes, no processing of letters from government department and no distribution of fines issued by local councils.

In addition, the workers have also been ordered not to distribute letters issued by government departments, not to distribute leaflets and magazines usually distributed through the Bieb Bieb (door-to-door) service and not to distribute registered letters.

As a sign of goodwill and a sign of corporate social responsibility, the union exempted letters involving polyclinics, the health departments, post involving social services and post for the National Commission for the Disabled.