A Postal Strike? Maybe, But Not Until January.
Postal workers are threatening to go on strike come January because the say that their employers, Correos de Costa Rica, has failed to keep it commitment given them in September, the payment of a series of back salaries that were owed to them.

Albino Vargas Barrantes, secretary general of the Asociación Nacional de Empleados Públicos y Privados (ANEP) - workers union - said that the Correos board of directors claim not to have knoweldge of the agreements and commitments made some three months back, when the Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social (MTSS) - Labour Ministry - had to intervene.

400 Correos workers say they are owed some ¢700 million colones (us$1.4 million dollars) in back pay.

The accusation is that Ricardo Toledo Carranza, now running for president of Costa Rica in the 2006 elections, took a series of actions that affected negatively the financial state of the institution and jeopardized the future of the entity, when he was general manager of Correos.

Vargas added that the Tribunales de Justicia (Courts) have voted in favour of the workers against Correos in changing the work week from 40 hours to 48 without additional compensation.

Vargas said that blame is squarely on the decisions made by Toledo while he was manager, causing the institution to fall behind in it payments, and now squarely falls on the shoulders of the current board of directors, headed by Germán Serrano Pinto.

The strike action by the workers is to protest the errors of the current board in refuse to respect the agreements, who in good faith have been patiently waiting to get paid.

"The current sentiment of the workers is that the institution (Correos) is mocking them and that come the new year, no more. Our first move is to strike", Vargas said.