It seems like the dispute at the centre of the current Royal Mail strike in the UK is being blamed on ‘Spanish practices’.

Now I have to admit that although I am often left waiting for stuff to be delivered overall I have no complaints with the Spanish mail so this does seem a little unfair. Anyway the Daily Telegraph in the UK has a list of 12 of the 92 “Spanish practices” which it claims are now at the core of the worst postal strike for nearly two decades. They include:

• Two or three hour minimum daily overtime - so if 30 minutes of actual work is required and completed, then between two and three hours’ payment is demanded
• Automatic overtime if mail volumes reach a certain level - regardless of how many ordinary working hours remain that day
• Set overtime level is claimed at Christmas, even if there is no need for any additional hours and no extra hours are worked
• No flexibility between different parts of the same sorting office - if an employee sorts letters for a particular postcode, they will not sort for the adjacent postcode, even though both activities are often in the same room
• Collection drivers expect overtime pay for doing collections outside usual route - even if it is done within usual working hours
• Ban on any cross functional working, even of similar tasks under the same roof

That said, I have been waiting 9 days for a delivery from the US.

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