Talks to avert York postal strike collapse

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http://www.thepress.co.uk/news/3866064. ... _collapse/

By Mike Laycock »


TALKS aimed at averting a damaging York postal strike in the run-up to Christmas have broken down without agreement.

Union leaders are now pressing ahead with a ballot on industrial action against a controversial Royal Mail decision to stop sorting second class post in York.

Communication Workers’ Union spokesman Paul Clays revealed today branch officials met managers on Tuesday to discuss the changes, which the union fears will be followed eventually by the closure of the York sorting office and loss of more than 350 jobs.

He said the union representatives told Royal Mail that York was more cost efficient and also provided a higher quality of service than Leeds, where the company wants to send second class mail for sorting.

But he said managers insisted they would be going ahead with the changes. “They wouldn’t listen,” he claimed.

He said branch officials would now be meeting to discuss arrangements for the ballot.

A Royal Mail spokeswomman said today: “We urge the union not to ballot for strike action which can only be damaging both for the business and for our customers, particularly in the run-up to Christmas, our busiest time.”

News of Royal Mail’s intention to transfer second class mail sorting to Leeds was exclusively revealed in The Press earlier this month. All second class mail posted within the Y0 postcode area will go to the Leeds Mail Centre.

The company said then that the move, intended to improve operational efficiency, would not result in the loss of any of the York centre’s 360 jobs, due to the way it managed staffing.

It also said there were “no plans at the moment” to transfer any further mail processing from York to Leeds.

But a York sorting office employee told The Press that staff feared the worst.

“We are worried this is the thin end of the wedge – that it could be death by a thousand cuts, “ he said.

Concerns have deepened since then with reports in a national newspaper that proposals may shortly be put to Business Secretary Peter Mandelson for dozens of smaller sorting offices across Britain to be shut as part of a Royal Mail rationalisation. York MP Hugh Bayley has opposed the move of second class mail to Leeds.