Strikes are likely if bosses do not settle wage claim of loyal and hard-working counters, admin and supply chain workers, following 97.3 per cent YES vote in national ballot…
Every Crown office in the UK will stop work and there will be no cash delivered or collected from our nation’s 11,500 sub-Post Offices unless senior management break the deadlock and end their unjustified pay freeze, warned the CWU today.
“This fantastic show of support by our members expresses their anger and frustration at being undervalued, once again, by a misguided and out of touch employer,” commented CWU assistant secretary Andy Furey, after the ballot result was announced earlier.
“Also, this democratic and nationwide vote is proof of our members’ collective determination to stand up and fight for a fair deal – and again I want to say how extremely proud I am of all of them and how this makes our Postal Executive all the more determined that we win the pay rise our members so richly deserve.”
The CWU is calling upon the Post Office to respond with either an acceptable proposal or an offer of meaningful negotiations, otherwise the union will decide when to call the first strike. Strike action is highly likely to impact significantly on the wider Post Office network, as a consequence of cash-in-transit drivers not providing required funding. Also, there is likely to be further disruption, with closed post offices impacting upon regular letter and parcel collections.
“With the current dogmatic attitude of Post Office management, we may have no choice but to take action as our members are facing the highest inflation in decades and a freeze on their pay. They work exceptionally hard serving the nation, and help to create healthy profits for the Post Office – but sadly, the Post Office is being run by people who just seem to disrespect their workers.
“Why? We have no idea. But this is the same Post Office management culture that led to hundreds of postmasters being wrongly prosecuted and in some cases imprisoned, through the Horizon scandal. This management team have simply squandered millions and millions in public money – the people’s money – on trying to defend the indefensible to save their own skins. Now they are trying to save money by punishing our members for their poor managerial decisions.
“The way they are treating our hard-working members is disgraceful.
“But we will win a fair pay rise – no doubt about that.”