Bristol's Royal Mail temp staff to double

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Bristol's Royal Mail temp staff to double
Wednesday, October 21, 2009, 07:00

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Royal Mail is doubling the number of temporary workers it would normally recruit in Bristol over the Christmas period to help deal with the backlog of letters from the postal strike.

About 500 agency staff are usually hired in Bristol to cope with the Christmas rush.

This year 1,000 temporary workers will be brought in to get cards and presents through people's doors in time for December 25.

And many have started six weeks earlier than in previous years to help clear the build-up of mail caused by the walkouts.

Temps are usually recruited at the start of December to help sort Christmas post at the Bristol Mail Centre in Filton.

Royal Mail refused to confirm how many extra temporary staff were being hired in Bristol, where they would work or what they would be doing.

But unions say that hundreds, recruited through the Manpower employment agency, have already begun work at a large temporary sorting warehouse set up near the South West Distribution Centre at Severn Beach.

Manpower also declined to comment on how many staff were being employed and for how long but the Evening Post understands the total will be about 500 more than normally hired in the run-up to Christmas.

The Communication Workers' Union (CWU) also said that Royal Mail managers had been drafted in from Dorset to work at a depot in Montpelier.

Dave Wilshire, secretary of the Bristol and District branch of the CWU, said: "Employment law says that agency staff should not be recruited to do the work of permanent staff who are on strike.

"We believe Royal Mail is clearly doing this at the site near the South West Distribution Centre (SWDC).

"We feel that they are just planning for even bigger failures of the mail, rather than directing their energies to resolving the dispute.

"They are spending all this money on extra agency staff and ferrying mangers around the country.

"Their efforts would be better directed to trying to reach an agreement so the people who are experts at doing the job and do it all year round can get back to work and start delivering people's mail in time for Christmas."

Talks between Royal Mail and the CWU were due to continue today, but two 24-hour strikes are planned for tomorrow and Friday are expected to go ahead.

That means 450 staff from the SWDC and 1,100 from the Bristol Mail Centre will walk out tomorrow, and on Friday 1,500 workers from 40 delivery depots across the Bristol area will strike.