The Act was not considered by observers to be as effective as Ward and Gorst believed, and had not been used by the Conservative government during the seven-week-long national Post Office strike in 1971. On 4 November Ward agreed to meet ACAS in return for UPW calling off its boycott, and following talks between APEX and UPW Grunwick staff were once more allowed to collect mail from the sorting office. Ward still applied for an "ex parte" injunction against both the Post Office and the UPW on 5 November, which was refused by Mr. Justice Chapman in the High Court. Usually, a party moves "ex parte" to prevent an adversary from having notice of their intentions. At a second "inter partes" hearing before Mr. Justice Slynn on 9 November, the firm consented to the dismissal of its application for an injunction. ACAS were empowered by section 11 of the Employment Protection Act (EPA) to "ascertain the opinions of workers to whom the issue relates", but Grunwick, backed by NAFF, disputed that the strikers should be included, on the grounds that they had been dismissed and so were no longer "workers" of the company. John Stacey, Grunwick's personnel manager, said "The truth is that we do not care what their opinions are." In the meantime, the company awarded a 15% pay rise to non-striking workers on the understanding that they would not join the union. In response, UPW said it would consider resuming its boycott of Grunwick if the firm would not co-operate with ACAS. Harold Walker, the Minister of State for Employment, also urged Grunwick to co-operate with ACAS to end the dispute and criticised the involvement of NAFF, saying that this was not the first time that this "ultra right wing political organisation [had] sought to interfere in industrial disputes, with harmful consequences." Grunwick would not turn over the names and addresses of those still working to ACAS, or allow them access to the workers, saying that it would only do so if their opinions were canvassed while those of the strikers were not taken into consideration. The company explained "We are bound by the opinion of the loyal workers inside our company" and would not heed those of the strikers "outside". The draft report prepared by ACAS, who had been unable to canvass all of the workers, recommended recognition of APEX by Grunwick for negotiation purposes. Grunwick responded to the draft by seeking legal advice to challenge the recommendation, centred on the definition of "worker".