Post Office to Remain Closed as Protest Continues

Work stoppage will continue at the General Post Office today, as over 100 workers remain off the job for the third week in a row

This comes after negotiations between their union and the government failed to yield any results on Monday.

The Post Office staff in St. Johns have been protesting against poor working conditions and the lack of safety in the workplace. For the past two weeks, they have been clocking into work but remaining outside the building as advised by their bargaining representative.

At a meeting held on Monday, Joan Peters, the President of the Antigua and Barbuda Public Service Association, noted that the government did not provide any assurance on when the issues would be addressed and resolved.

Consequently, the union has advised the post office staff to continue their actions until the matter is addressed.

“They just cannot continue to work. These workers want to return to work but the environment is just not conducive at this time for them to return to work. We have to do what we have to do. We met sometime last week and they promised to address the issues including a bad stench but they have not done anything much,” Peters said

She said an agreement was made at the meeting last week which included the permanent secretary and Prime Minister Gaston Browne but the work was not done to their satisfaction

“We agreed to things and we said to them once they were met staff would return to work but 90% of the things were not done. The building is stinking…we cannot continue like this,” she said

According to Peters, although some cleaning work was carried out, it was not enough to ensure the safety of the workers for their return to work.

“They did some kind of cleaning yesterday, the place is not clean, they did some kind of touch up and that was it…” she explained