Managers posted to streets as mail strike chaos looms

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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ROYAL Mail managers are to be sent on to the streets in Edinburgh as a 24-hour strike throws deliveries into chaos.
The Capital is the only Scottish city affected by the UK-wide action on Friday, with around 500 Lothian workers expected to down tools.

The city's central, north-west and south-west delivery offices will all be hit, affecting deliveries to the EH8, EH4 and EH10 postcodes. Collection and distribution drivers in Edinburgh will also be on strike, as will staff at delivery offices in Dalkeith, Bathgate and Bo'ness.

Royal Mail bosses said managers would take over some of the striking workers' duties to ensure collections continued from Post Office branches and the post boxes outside them.

They will also attempt to continue deliveries to large businesses, to make sure special deliveries arrive on time, and to carry out some deliveries of regular mail in the affected areas. Customer inquiry offices will be open as normal for customers to collect mail. The Communication Workers Union (CWU), which is behind the strike, says the Royal Mail has failed to discuss with the union the final stage of a modernisation process which was put in place in 2007, affecting the introduction of machinery, redesigning deliveries and improving industrial relations.

The strike is the latest in a series of industrial actions to hit different areas of the city in recent months. Kenny Logan, CWU area delivery representative for Edinburgh, Lothian and Borders, warned: "If the union nationally can't see the Royal Mail making the constructive decision to set timetables to agree talks on the modernisation of the business, there's a strong possibility that the union could be balloting for a national dispute.

"The last thing we want to do is to disrupt the service. We want to give customers the service they have enjoyed in the past but the business is on a slash and burn process. We believe that the public do support our average post person, because they deliver a great service. We're asking Royal Mail to give us the proper tools to do the job."

However, Royal Mail said it was the union that was holding up modernisation. It condemned the strike plans, which will hit a total of 11 delivery offices in the east of Scotland.

The company said: "Royal Mail will be doing everything possible during the strike to provide as complete a service as possible to customers. Strike action hurts both businesses and individuals and our customers will not understand how the CWU leadership can keep saying it backs modernisation while constantly resisting the introduction of new technology and more efficient working practices on the ground."

The strike will run from midnight to midnight this Friday.

[DGP1]

If they have enough managers to go out onto the streets then they obviously don't have enough of their own work to do

[tiredwalker]

If they have enough managers to go out onto the streets then they obviously don't have enough of their own work to do

we know they don't have enough of there own work most head off home at lunch time.

[ar26]

10% approx of our office staff are managers. I still can't quite understand why the management don't join us, they must see they'll be next and with the salaries they're on they have a lot more to lose than us. Remember this cost cutting excerise is 10% across the board everything from staff to vehicle to fuel to stationary, doesn't take a genuis to work out loss a manager or 2 and look how much you save !!!!

[pinstripe]

We have had 4 line managers this week, but no DOM (another one bites the dust). 2 of them know the score but the other 2 are lost, you see them wander up 'and down, looking for something to do. If they were to be posted to the "streets" they'd need a map to get out the door, bless 'em.