Post offices deluged with undelivered mail
Talks aimed at resolving the postal workers’ dispute are set to resume today after failing to overcome the impasse on London’s weightings last night.
Representatives from the Communication Workers Union CWU and Royal Mail met last night to find a way beyond the crisis that is costing millions of pounds in lost business each day.
The CWU estimates 25,000 staff have stopped work over pay and conditions at Royal Mail’s sorting and delivery offices.
Over the last fortnight isolated industrial action at offices in the capital and elsewhere has left millions of items of post undelivered.
Postal workers had previously voted against a national strike for a £300 a week minimum but backed 24-hour industrial action over £4,000 a year London weighting allowances.
Over 60 per cent of London’s postal workers are now on strike, with colleagues up and down the country withdrawing their labour in sympathy.
Royal Mail has started to seal many of London’s 20,000 post boxes to get on top of the growing undelivered mail mountain.
More than 16 million items of mail every day are stuck in the backlog in London.
Unofficial strike action is taking place in Essex, Maidstone, Milton Keynes, Warrington and Coventry and acoss the border in Scotland.
Mutual recrimination between both parties meant that little progress was made last night.
Billy Hayes, head of the CWU said: “Our members are disgusted that Royal Mail is trying to humiliate them and treat them completely unfairly, and they have reacted to that.
“We are seeking to get a resolution. It has taken us the best part of a week to get negotiations with Royal Mail. It was my initiative that sought a meeting with Royal Mail and now they are sitting around the table trying to discuss a resolution.”
Adam Crozier, chief executive of the Post Office, accused wildcat strikers of colluding with external agitators.
“There is a campaign of illegal official industrial action going on across the capital. It is clearly designed attempt to blackmail the Royal Mail into increasing the party offer that is on the table in London this is something we are not prepared to do,” he said.
