9:10am Thursday 9th October 2008
ROYAL mail bosses in York have been forced to apologise after more than 7,000 items of first and second slass mail were unable to be delivered around the city.
Under-fire workers at the Leeman Road site hit out after accusing management of failing to ensure there was proper staffing and equipment in place to deliver the post over the weekend shift.
For last Saturday it has been confirmed that the thousands of items, including parcels and packages, could not be delivered.
Royal Mail has insisted the failure was a one-off and said that the undelivered mail represented only four per cent of the 175,000 items handled on a daily basis at York. A Royal Mail spokesman said: “Due to an operational issue at York Mail Centre, a very small proportion of mail due for delivery to the YO10 and YO19 postcode districts on Saturday was delayed until Monday.
“We apologise for any inconvenience caused to customers, and we are putting measures in place hopefully to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.”
One worker, who did not wish to be named, said: “This is just another example of what is happening in here and the morale is just rock bottom.
“We’ve been told that we are not efficient enough and that is why they are shipping out the sorting of second class mail to Leeds.”
The Press revealed on Monday how Royal Mail intends to stop processing second class post in York sparking fears for the long-term future of the city’s sorting office and more than 350 jobs. It said the move, intended to improve operational efficiency, would not result in the loss of any of the York centre's 360 jobs. But postal workers union leader Paul Clays said he and members feared the loss of second class mail sorting would be followed later by first class and other mail, and the closure of the entire sorting office.
He warned that meetings of CWU members would be held to discuss the change, with the possibility of industrial action by both sorting office and delivery workers against the change.