National
Correos, the Spanish Post Office, to cut rural delivery service
By h.b.
Jan 22, 2008 - 4:02 PM

The Spanish post office, Correos, is to stop home deliveries in isolated areas. In a little publicised move, a decree from the Ministry for Development now allows Correos to cancel the delivery of letters and packages to homes where there is a low density of housing or to isolated homes.

Under the new regulations Correos will no longer be obliged to deliver to houses that are more than 250 metres from a main road.
The rural areas of Galicia are expected to be those most affected by the move. According to the 2001 census, some 445,000 people in the region could thus lose their postal delivery service. Correos suggests that in such areas the home owners collect their post from a community letter box which Correos will locate at a place decided in agreement with the local town hall and neighbourhood associations.

Postal union CIG is not happy. They say that in Galicia alone it means that 400 of the 1,200 postmen and women in the region are likely to lose their jobs, while the company insists that no jobs are to be cut.

One postman from Lalín in Pontevedra, Rafael Iglesias, told El País that the only door to door state service was the post.
‘Not even the Guardia Civil cover the country as we do’, he said.
Workers protests are now being organised.