Waiting for a parcel?

AT least 200,000 items, some received in November, are piling up at Correos postal service offices at Madrid’s Barajas airport, according to the CGT trade union.

The union insists that the International Sorting Office has become overloaded due to the number of parcels arriving, staff reductions and lack of space.

The number of workers at the sorting office, not counting temporary workers, has been reduced by 25 per cent over the last seven years according to the union. Miguel Arias, CGT union Work Health secretary, said: “Today there are between 250 and 300 of us working on different shifts, about 100 less than in 2007.”

Meanwhile Correos stated that the company employs 465 permanent workers at Barajas and another 158 people are taken on to cover weekend shifts over the Christmas period.

Yet CGT considers the staffing to be insufficient for the workload, especially in the winter months, and blames Correos for not filling positions left by people who leave or retire.

Arias, who has been working at Barajas Post Offices for 25 years, 10 of them at the sorting centre, explained the work his colleagues face at the airport: “All international post comes through Barajas. Parcels from China, which make up between 60 and 80 per cent of the total, have increased by 400 per cent over the last few months.”