Union leaders hail Sunderland post office strike

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UNION leaders say Post Office staff delivered a major rebuke to bosses in the latest round of industrial action.

Workers at Sunderland’s city-centre post office walked out on Tuesday as the Communication Workers’ Union held a further bout of industrial action as part of a nationwide ongoing row over pay and job cuts.

Regional organiser Steve Keeley was delighted with the response to the strike call, which saw Post Office bosses forced to work behind the counter to keep the Fawcett Street office open. “The day went extremely well,” he said. “We had a 100 per cent turn-out from staff.

“The office was open, but manned by managers. We had a presence outside for a couple of hours, just to gauge support, and we gathered more than 500 signatures.”

The union is locked in a dispute with Post Office bosses over the Transformation programme, which it says offers one-off payments – rather than a consolidated and pensionable pay rise – at the expense of 76 post offices nationwide being franchised or closed, at a cost of more than 1,200 jobs.