To minimise the effects of today's strike, Portugal’s Post Office workers will deliver mail on Saturday.
Mail deliveries have been severely affected today as an estimated 85% of CTT workers were on strike and in major centres protests were mounted and pickets tried to stop non-CTT transport entering and leaving depots.
The minimum service level decreed by law has been maintained throughout the one day stoppage and management has managed to contract private transport firms to move mail around depots desp+ite ill feeling from picketing workers.
Despite the strike, CTT workers will give priority to registered mail, Correio Azul and benefit cheques and Saturday deliveries will help keep the public on-side.
The 24-hour strike kicks off a week of protests in the communications and transport industry. The CTT protest is over the proposed privatisation of Portugal's post offices which has already seen many small branches closed in a nationwide quest for efficientcy at the cost of accessibility, especially problematic for older customers without transport.
