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Chaos at Correos in L’Hospitalet: unions warn of collapse over 65,000 notices and staff shortages
CGT and CCOO report 65,000 notifications and insufficient staff before 5 December.
The situation at Correos centres in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat has become unsustainable, according to the CGT and CCOO trade unions. The lack of replacement cover for sick leave and the accumulation of 65,000 notifications for the new waste charge—which must be delivered before 5 December—have raised alarm among workers.
Both unions warn that more than twenty employees are not being replaced, leaving several delivery sections severely understaffed. This overload is compounded by the approaching Christmas campaign and Black Friday, traditionally busy periods for the postal service.
CGT and CCOO consider the aim of delivering all notifications on time to be virtually unattainable without immediate reinforcements. The notifications require hand delivery and a signature, which slows the process still further, on top of regular deliveries and the usual parcels.
Correos, for its part, maintains that the service is operating normally and that staffing is sufficient to guarantee quality and delivery times. However, the unions insist that the lack of contracts to cover sick leave is common practice, directly affecting workloads and service quality.
It is not the first time that chaos in L’Hospitalet has been reported: two years ago, CGT already warned of insufficient staffing for the volume of work. Now the pressure is even greater because of the contract with the Diputación de Barcelona, which requires the 65,000 notifications to be delivered before the deadline.
Union representatives explain that each recorded delivery can take up to ten minutes, limiting the number of notifications each worker can handle each day. They also recall that delivery delays have caused problems in the past, although the Diputación says that the deadline for paying the charge does not begin until the resident receives the certificate.
Meanwhile, uncertainty is growing among employees and residents of L’Hospitalet, who are hoping to receive their notifications on time amid a particularly demanding postal campaign.