Wigan - Postal workers to strike

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Wigan is set for a crippling postal strike - more than 350 delivery staff will stage two 24-hour walkouts on Friday August 21 and Monday August 24.
The Hallgate sorting office staff say they are "furious" after Royal Mail management scrapped nine jobs by voluntary redundancy.

Communication Workers Union chiefs say that the decision effectively rips up their joint agreement with bosses that such deals be reached through negotiated agreement.

A mass meeting at Upper Morris Street Club on Tuesday evening unanimously backed an earlier secret ballot which had "overwhelmingly" supported the CWU's industrial action call.

Post workers say they regret the impending strike action and can't afford to lose wages in a time of recession, but claim they have been backed into a corner.

But a spokesman for Royal Mail insisted: "The union are reneging, not Royal Mail."

Wigan CWU said that staff were increasingly angry about the way they are being treated and in 21 years' service he had "never known morale so low."

Branch secretary Paul Fenney said: "Royal Mail in Wigan has carried out an unagreed revision of the staffing levels which breaks the agreement between the union and the management.

"They have taken executive action where they have approached lads in their 50s and offered them a voluntary redundancy deal which includes allowing them to take their pension early and we don't blame them for accepting.But this has meant a reduction in the staffing by nine jobs.

"We are concerned about taking jobs out of Wigan which will impound on those staff remaining and this has been done unilaterally and hasn't been negotiated.

"They have reneged on the deal that we had and we all know what would have been said if it was the union side that had done it, don't we?

"The staff are really upset about being treated like this at the same time that the Royal Mail, against the odds and because of the co-operation of staff, have just announced a £321m profit although they are planning a pay freeze for them.
"Nobody takes this lightly. We are being forced into it."

Mr Fenney revealed a dispute was simmering between the Hallgate Royal Mail staff and the Wigan management over the issue of staff using their own cars to take their letters to their 'walks.'

This already led to a number of suspended dismissal notices being issued against postal staff.

A spokesman for the Royal Mail said they had yet to be officially notified of the walkout.

She said: "We urge staff not to strike over changes which were covered by the 2007 Agreement on Pay and Modernisation, which the CWU leadership signed in the presence of the TUC. They are now reneging on that agreement. The union claims to support modernisation, yet acts to destroy it."

[CourtneyCox]

She said: "We urge staff not to strike over changes which were covered by the 2007 Agreement on Pay and Modernisation, which the CWU leadership signed in the presence of the TUC. They are now reneging on that agreement. The union claims to support modernisation, yet acts to destroy it."

[General Mannerheim]

Pie eaters going out on strike...whatever next.

[yorkie]

TO ALL THE PIE EATERS.... :TO ALL BIG P'S IN WIGAN