Postal staff step up campaign to save Royal Mail

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TUC leader Frances O'Grady delivered a passionate pledge today to support hard-pressed postal workers in strike action to save the Royal Mail from the "disaster" of privatisation.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) served notice that 4,000 posties will take part in a one-day walkout next Monday as it ramps up the campaign against Royal Mail privatisation, post office closures, jobs losses and pay cuts.

CWU said government-backed plans to shut or sell-off 20 per cent of Britain's post offices will cost 800 jobs.

Workers have not received a pay rise since April 2011 - despite the Royal Mail registering bumper profits of £61 million last year.

And Ms O'Grady gave her support to action against the "nastiest, most ideological, right-wing government that Britain has ever seen."

Ms O'Grady told delegates to the union's annual conference in Bournemouth: "We will not stand by and see services cut and workers walked over.

"Just so there's no confusion, let me be clear. The TUC will back the CWU all the way. The TUC will always back our unions, including co-ordinated industrial action wherever unions want it and whenever workers vote for it."

She also told delegates that the Con-Dem government will not be able to "fool" the public into accepting privatisation.

"Prices would rocket, small businesses suffer, rural communities abandoned," she explained.

"The evidence is clear - privatisation is bad for workers, bad for customers and bad for Britain.

"The British public are overwhelmingly against privatisation. Royal Mail has already modernised and the service is now more stable than at any point in a decade, but they want to wreck it.

"Let us say to the government: 'Our Royal Mail is not for sale'."

Union members voted overwhelmingly to renew their campaign against the privatisation of Royal Mail, which CWU general secretary Billy Hayes said could "wreck" postal services.

Mr Hayes set out the union's vision for a "modern Royal Mail in full public ownership and able to deliver the universal service six days a week to all parts of the UK."

And he assured members: "We've had the full support of the Labour Party in that desire in the past and have no reason to believe that will not be so again."

But the union's leadership have faced calls from members to stop the flow of cash to Labour unless the party's next general election manifesto offers a clear commitment to the public ownership of the Royal Mail.

A spokeswoman for the Royal Mail said: "By obtaining access to external money, we can invest in the business. We can secure as many jobs as possible, although we will be a smaller company in the future."