Bridgwater DO Strike Leaflet

[TrueBlueTerrier]

ROYAL MAIL PRIVATISED?

MORE POST OFFICE CLOSURES?

What does it mean for you the public we serve, and why are Bridgwater Royal Mail workers on strike, on Saturday 20th/Monday 22nd, this Xmas?

The last few years have seen a drop in Royal Mail’s standards: this is NOT the fault of us, the Bridgwater workforce. We are expected to sort faster and walk faster and so finish later, yet all the time the public are getting a worse service: mail is being delivered later, too late, or sometimes, not until the day after it is due. In the Bristol & Somerset area we have four Delivery Offices, SEDO, SDO, Kingswod and Bridgwater, where we face the replacement of full time duties with part-time duties. Part-time duties do not sort mail: so we have less and less full-time duties to sort mail: this means that we all start our deliveries later and finish later, and you the public suffer! THAT is what our strike is about.

Royal Mail has rejected our sensible proposals to have six part-time duties ‘made-up’ to full-time, to help us deliver to you earlier. This would mean raising service standards: we have even shown them how to save money to do it! Instead, managers now accuse the few remaining sorters of only working at 70%, and pressure and cajole the rest of us to speed up: there are rumours that Royal Mail will soon expect us to increase our walking speed from three to 4.5 miles an hour, and this speed, remember, is for three and a half hours or more!

Enough is enough: which is why we have decided to exercise our civic rights and stop work in protest. We appeal to you to support us: we are not on strike for more pay or overtime: we are on strike for the principle of a properly trained full-time workforce that can return to delivering an excellent service. We believe that your support will, in effect, help to prevent New Labour/Mr Mandelson’s privatisation of the Royal Mail, & the closure of more and more Post Offices. This would be so much easier if the current workforce is replaced with a demoralised, casualised part-time staff! If you agree with us, please let us know.

Thank you for taking the trouble to read this.

Dave Wilshire, Branch Secretary, Dave Chapple, Branch Chair,

Communication Workers Union, Bristol and District Amalgamated Branch. 20 Church Rd, Lawrence Hill, Bristol, BS5 9JA; 01179350055: davidwilshirecwu@btconnect.com

[Viewfindergeneral]

Well done. I support you all the way. When will management realise that we DO actually know what we`re talking about. We do the job, they just look for ways of catching us out. There is no need for p/t jobs. There is plenty of work if we ALL DO THE JOB PROPERLY.

[kay_thebigbird]

CUT CUT CUT CUT thats all it is ,this is my neck of the woods & my old & new office are mentioned in the report good luck to the bridgewater DO for having the balls to stand up to RM.I hope the public are understanding but I doubt they will be.

[dvbuk55]

CUT CUT CUT CUT thats all it is ,this is my neck of the woods & my old & new office are mentioned in the report good luck to the bridgewater DO for having the balls to stand up to RM.I hope the public are understanding but I doubt they will be.

I think the public do understand how their service is being eroded - as an employee how many times have you been asked by a member of the public "What's going wrong" - I was in a shop the other day and a chap asked that very question - my reply as always is "It is the current policy to save money at any cost and the service suffers". I do think though that they have been coached to expect less and some at least are inured to the change.