MONTEGO BAY, St James - The Montego Bay police had to be called in to remove mail contractors, protesting the non-renewal of their contracts, from the premises of the Montego Bay Number One Post Office yesterday morning.

OMEALLY-NELSON... 25 contracts not renewed islandwide

The three workers, one of whom had 40 years of service, used motor vehicles to block the entrance to the post office.
Supporters of the postal workers, some of whom had been employed by the men who lost their contracts, which had been tendered, came out in support of the protest.

Part of the grouse of the crowd was that some of new awards went to contractors outside of western Jamaica.
They were also incensed about the manner in which the former contractors were taken from the premises.

But Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of Area One Keith 'Trinity' Gardner defended the action of the lawmen.

"There was a problem there that would have led to a very untenable situation. They blocked the entrance to the post office thereby disallowing ingress or egress," he said.

"The mails could not be dispatched so we had to take strong action. But we had a happy ending; nobody was arrested."
Postmaster General Dr Blossom O'Meally Nelson explained that a new tender system is now in place for the selection of mail contractors. The new process has led to the axing of 25 mail contractors from the system islandwide.

"After the selection process, 25 of the old ones did not win," said O'Meally-Nelson.
"Overall we have retained 70 per cent of the former contractors; it is about 30 per cent new people who would be coming on stream."

She further noted that most of the contractors were issued with expiry letters, which they signed and returned but apparently did not read.

She defended the new tender system which was resisted by the Jamaica Mail Express Cooperation as a method which has so far reduced costs by six per cent.

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