DM Front Page-Your post is in the gutter

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Your post is in the gutter: Strike-hit Post Office managers sort mail on the pavement

By Christopher Leake
Last updated at 10:23 PM on 12th September 2009

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Sacks of letters and parcels have been left lying in the gutter after Royal Mail chiefs secretly drafted in managers in a desperate attempt to clear a huge backlog of mail caused by postal strikes.

In a scene that evokes memories of the ‘winter of discontent’ 30 years ago – when Left-wing strikers brought the nation to a virtual standstill – a public service is yet again being reduced to chaos by militants determined to disrupt everyday life.

This was Worple Road, Wimbledon, South-West London, yesterday as volunteer postal managers – among thousands across the country – were forced to offload mail into the road because the Royal Mail delivery office 100 yards away had been shut down after a walkout by postal staff.
Chaos: Royal Mail managers unload sacks of letters from vans in Worple Road, Wimbledon yesterday


Mail on Sunday reader Brian Narborough was stunned to see mail being sorted on the street

Working next to suburban flats and offices, the managers, wearing orange reflective vests, removed mail on to the pavement from the vans and 6ft-high steel sorting trolleys before delivering it to local addresses.

The scene was captured on a mobile phone camera by Brian Narborough, of nearby Raynes Park.

The 60-year-old retired golf club steward said last night: ‘As I drove past, I could hardly believe what I was seeing. These postal people were throwing the mailbags over their shoulders and into the street from the vans. It’s not what you expect in the middle of a suburban street at a weekend.

‘It’s hardly secure, either. I thought the idea of the mail was that it was delivered to you safely. No wonder it’s late arriving.

‘It really took me by surprise to see all that post in the street. It certainly explains why I’ve been waiting so long for my post when it’s strewn all over the place like that at 11 in the morning.

The postal service around here has been terrible for a couple of weeks now. We had no post at all some days last week. It is just awful that it has come to this.’

The Wimbledon delivery office in Cranbrook Road was one of 14 Royal Mail depots around Britain yesterday where managers were being used as strike-busters.
Staff sort the piles of mail in the street for delivery

There are more than 14,000 delivery and sorting offices throughout the country, delivering over 75million letters and parcels a day.

Royal Mail bosses insist that more than 90 per cent of mail is being delivered. But a series of one-day strikes by 20,000 members of the Communication Workers Union – aimed at causing maximum disruption with minimal loss of pay – have brought chaos to the postal system in the past fortnight.

This will hugely embarrass Gordon Brown, who on Tuesday will tell the TUC conference in Liverpool that Government and leadership are about making choices ‘in the best interests of the country’. He will also admit that Britain’s road towards recovery is ‘still fragile and not automatic’.

The union claims that its series of rolling walkouts has paralysed parts of the network, causing a backlog of 20million items in London, with some families not receiving their post for ten days.

Other hotspots have included millions of letters and parcels blocked in the Bristol area, 500,000 in Peterborough and 250,000 in Leeds.

Businesses say deliveries have been reduced to a ‘trickle’ in many areas, threatening orders if mail does not get through to customers. This week the disruption will spread to Cambridgeshire; Cricklewood, Docklands, Southwark, Stratford and Woolwich, East and West London; Birmingham; Carlisle; the East Midlands; Swindon and Yorkshire, plus Ayr, Irvine and Kilwinning in Scotland.

Results of a CWU national strike ballot are expected on October 8 – the week after the Labour conference.

But it was clear yesterday from the makeshift delivery office at the side of Worple Road that the battle lines are already being drawn between Royal Mail managers and the unions.

One senior Royal Mail official said: ‘We are using thousands of our managers up and down the country to try to get parcels and letters to our customers. If there are no staff to sort them or deliver them, then managers will do it instead. The same applies to Parcelforce if pickets stop their vans delivering packages.’

At the heart of the dispute is a claim by union chiefs that Royal Mail – which has just reported its best profits for 20 years – has provoked their action by ‘bullying’ staff over cost-cutting and modernisation plans, which the postal giant says need to be pushed through to ensure its survival against private and international competition.

Royal Mail, seen as one of the last bastions of union power, has called time on a range of inflexible ‘Spanish Practices’ dating back to the Seventies, such as allowing postmen to go home if they finish their round early.

Bosses want to end automatic overtime if mail volumes reach a certain level, guaranteed overtime pay at Christmas, and the right to refuse to work outside particular rounds or postcodes.

Other Spanish Practices include being paid two or three hours’ overtime for 30 minutes of extra work, and extra pay on Easter Saturday even if no work is required.
The backlog of mail in London has reached 20 million, and is set to spread to Cricklewood, Docklands, Southwark and Stratford and Woolwich this week


Staff also sign in and out for a shift on arrival so there is no record of hours worked, and can claim a full day’s overtime to cover for an absent colleague even if only half a day is required and worked.

The 1978-79 ‘winter of discontent’ led to the downfall of Jim Callaghan’s Labour Government after he sought to impose a pay freeze to control inflation. Labour’s failure to defeat widespread strikes in the NHS and other public services led to Callaghan losing the 1979 General Election to Margaret Thatcher, who went on to curb union power and make unofficial strikes illegal.

A Royal Mail spokesman said last night: ‘We are doing everything we possibly can to keep the mail moving, and we will deliver as much as we can despite the CWU’s strike action.’

The CWU said: ‘Postal workers are often blamed for mail being dumped or misdelivered, but this time it looks as if managers are to blame.

‘Sorting mail on the street would be completely unacceptable for ordinary postal workers. It’s not safe and it’s not right.

‘This is another example of a management unfit for purpose. Instead of working to resolve the dispute and address the concerns of postal workers to bring these strikes to an end, they’re more interested in disposing of the evidence of mail backlogs.

‘Trust between staff and managers is at rock bottom. Postal workers want to work in an efficient and effective company, not one where managers get paid triple to ignore their concerns. It’s time that these managers were thrown out.’

[Stormproof]

The comments have started don't forget to rate them as you read

[pickaname]

"sack the lot of 'em" is the main theme of the comments.

Nothing unusual for Daily Mail readers.

If I were commenting on mail readers I would say "shoot the lot of 'em"

[mailsort6]

One thing this article illustrates is that management have no logical contingency plans, the public are seeing things for themselves how management lack strategic ideas and this is what us posties have to put up with everyday, the posties are the ones trying to save the business and make it more efficient and effective so that the customer can get a better service.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Cor they cut my comment down to 2 lines - probably because I mentioned the Journalistic Spanish Practice of not getting both sides and highlighting only views that fit their perceived agenda, and that they did not post any of the more moderate views on here

[DGP1]

I surprised they didn't try to blame the foreigners stirring up trouble in RM