Yet More Postal Workers Test Positive for COVID 19

[merson01]

Four postal workers at a Liverpool delivery office have tested positive for Coronavirus. An unknown number of workers are quarantined awaiting test results.

This is the second report of a Coronavirus outbreak in a week as an outbreak at a Bury sorting office in Greater Manchester Royal Mail has left several postal workers recovering at home. Bury And Liverpool have seen a significant escalation of COVID 19 cases recently. A postal worker at Royal Mail's Grimsby delivery office has tested positive for Covid-19.

Royal Mail has been deliberately vague as to the numbers of postal workers infected because it does not like anything to impinge on its profit drive.

Time and time again when an outbreak occurs it trots out the usual mantra that "Royal Mail takes the health and safety of its colleagues, its customers and the local communities in which we operate very seriously". "During this time, we have carried out a full, enhanced clean of the building as a precautionary measure. The Bury Delivery Office remains open as normal."

Once this announcement is made, it is business as usual. Nothing is heard how sick postal workers who are off work are and how they caught the virus only that they are 'recuperating.'

Significantly Royal Mail has made sure that its measures have been ratified by the CWU saying "All staff have been briefed about the social distancing measures jointly agreed by local management and the CWU. This has been supplemented with visible reminders such as posters and one-way floor markings."


The role of the CWU has been crucial during this pandemic. There is no way that Royal Mail would be operating, let alone making money if it were not for the role of the CWU bureaucracy. It is also no accident that the sicker postal workers get, the higher the share price goes.

As I said in an earlier article “the brutal working conditions that exist in Royal Mail are down to not only Royal Mail, but are the product of the union’s collaboration with the company going back decades.

The CWU is currently in negotiations with Royal Mail after boasting that it has brought Royal Mail to the table and is demanding adherence to the 2017 Four Pillars Agreement. The CWU claims this heralded a new way of working that enshrined postal workers’ pay and conditions in law.

As the WSWS has explained, the Four Pillars deal was a sellout and included an inferior pension scheme, reduction in working hours in return for productivity boosts through alterations to delivery routes, new duty patterns, new working practices, and greater use of technology to monitor performance. Behind the backs of workers, the CWU is agreeing on fundamental changes in working practices that will be to the detriment of most postal workers.

To clear the path for these changes, the union has cleared 600 disagreements off the table so that Royal Mail will be given free rein to impose revisions or job cuts without the threat of strike action”.

It is clear that the very limited safety measures in place are not working and are putting postal workers lives in danger. It will not be long before more postal workers are added to the four deaths already. I call on workers who are not happy with the COVID-19 dangers they have been subjected to by unions and management at Royal Mail and want to fight the restructure and the dangerous conditions to contact the Socialist Equality Party at sep@sep.org.uk

[teesdale]

Strange that a food production plant or university can be shut down and everyone told to isolate but a Royal Mail Sorting or delivery office just carries on. After a deep clean wipe about, everything just continues on. No one has still said will you people who work for Royal Mail continue to process and deliver the mail for these reasons. No one has said what you are doing is important for this country. I know that management think we are all unintelligent thieves who can't be trusted to give a "balanced view" . Without them we will send out the letters, parcels and flats, if necessary for years and if necessary alone.

[Jpro747]

Why do we STILL have people wondering about cramped offices not wearing masks, not washing hands on entry, and taking no notice of social distancing?

[aiden01]

Why do we STILL have people wondering about cramped offices not wearing masks, not washing hands on entry, and taking no notice of social distancing?

Maybe because they are selfish c##ts

[glenfiddich]

I see no mention of the 2 cases at Hull cdo I wonder if its being kept hush hush

[PostmanBitesDog]

Why do we STILL have people wondering about cramped offices not wearing masks, not washing hands on entry, and taking no notice of social distancing?

They're fatalists. They've accepted the fact that life is short, so they're doing their best to make it shorter.

[aiden01]

I see no mention of the 2 cases at Hull cdo I wonder if its being kept hush hush

3 cases in nimc last 2 weeks not made local news either..

[merson01]

Yes, it looks like cases in other offices are being kept quiet, I heard an office in London had one case. How many more cases are being kept quiet