An Post pensioners demand their financial rights be restored

Members of Post Office Pensioners United (POPU) gathered outside Mullingar Post Office on Friday to protest against what they see as the ongoing financial penalties imposed on retired An Post workers.

The action was replicated across the country and at Leinster House over delays in the payment of pension increases for 20,000 retired workers at An Post.

In 2013, An Post and its unions, led by the Communications Workers Union (CWU), agreed a pension accord to restore the pension fund over a decade.

“There was an agreement reached for 10 years that we’d take reduced pensions,” retired post worker John Egan said outside the Mullingar branch of An Post. “That 10-year period was over in 2023, but the Pension Accord was extended without the agreement of anybody involved, there was no vote or nothing.”

The protesters are calling for an end to the extended pension accord, along with the restoration of pension increases and pension rights: “The max increase I can get in one year is capped at 2%,” John says, “as the cost of living goes up and our pensions are diminishing in dimension.”

Joe Shaw is another retired An Post worker. He started work in Dublin in 1977, transferred to Mullingar in the mid-80s and worked the rest of the time in the county town. He said the gathering of the Post Office Pensioners United aims to highlight their plight: “It’s a voluntary organisation, it’s not a union as such. We are not represented, the Communications Workers Union was our union, but they don’t represent pensioners.”

The retired postal workers from Mullingar and Athlone who gathered outside the An Post office hope their protest will bring about change: “We’re hoping they lift this pension accord, it was due to be lifted in 2013 and the pension fund is now back into surplus.”

Joe says the public have been supportive of their actions: “Everybody’s in the same boat, we’re all still paying the USC, that was another temporary measure as well, but it’s just the way things are nowadays. People have been saying they understand why we are unhappy. They have given us great support here today.”

The issue will be examined by the Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport this week, when POPU, An Post management, and union representatives will present their cases.