Royal Mail: how the national strike plan began

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... began.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The national strike, which is threatening to bring the national postal network to a standstill, began with a row over the future of several hundred staff at a delivery office in the central London, writes Christopher Hope.

The trouble started in May, when local managers started to implement parts of the company’s controversial 2009 cost-cutting business plan, after five months of fruitless talks with representatives from the Communication Workers Union.

The plan was deeply divisive. It had called for a 10 per cent cut in costs at depots and sorting offices across the country – and cuts of 22 per cent in London. It was the latest attempt by Royal Mail to reshape the organisation to cope with a 10 per cent annual fall in the amount of mail being sent.

These modernisation plans had been agreed in principle after the last national postal strike in October 2007. Yet the devil was in the detail. The plans included cutting overtime, forcing some full-time staff to work part-time and cancelling set delivery times for some business mail.

Yet Royal Mail sources claimed that the CWU had already sabotaged any attempt to agree the cuts by telling members in April not to engage in talks with Royal Mail on the efficency savings.

Finally, in May, managers in Royal Mail’s East City Delivery Office at the Mount Pleasant sorting office in central London took matters into their own hands and started to implement the cuts among 450 delivery office workers.

One Royal Mail source said: “We did our utmost to try to get the union to engage with us on the changes taking place at a local level. This was in line with the 2007 agreement.”

The result was uproar, and it prompted an immediate call by CWU representatives for local strike action.

News of the ballot at Mount Pleasant spread and soon workers in Edinburgh, Plymouth and Bristol North were balloting for strike action. Scores of other local offices followed in the succeeding weeks.

Over the summer, workers at hundreds ofdelivery offices, mail centres and van depots balloted for strike action as the dispute escalated. By the end of last month, 700 Royal Mail delivery offices and depots had agreed to stage localised strikes, involving 13,000 workers.

The result was chaos in the mail system, with some households waiting for up to two weeks for cheques, bank statements and credit card bills to arrive.

The CWU said some 30million items of mail were stuck in the mail system – although this figure was disputed by Royal Mail. Talks at a national level between the leaders of the CWU and Royal Mail failed to get any agreement. Then last month the CWU announced that it was balloting its 121,000 members for the first national strike in two years.

Robert Hammond, post expert at Consumer Focus, said: “It’s hugely disappointing to watch a great UK institution tear itself apart."

Lord Young, the postal affairs minister, added: “A national postal strike is completely self defeating and will only serve to hurt consumers and businesses who rely on the post and drive even more people away from using mail.”

Meanwhile major customers have started to make their own plans to deliver their post. Internet retailer Amazon signed up a rival courier firm to deliver its goods in the event of a strike.

TNT, the Dutch postal giant, said it expected to win more major mail contracts in Britain, to add to the deals to delivery British Gas and BT phone bills from Royal Mail. The future of Royal Mail has never looked more uncertain.

[janitor]

So I take it TNT are really going to deliver these bills, i think not.

[baldrick]

Another lazy journalist repeating RM propaganda about it all starting in London.
If they could be bothered to do a bit of research they would know that action was
taken regularly in Scottish Delivery Offices against Executive Action from March.

[norbert]

Another lazy journalist repeating RM propaganda about it all starting in London.
If they could be bothered to do a bit of research they would know that action was
taken regularly in Scottish Delivery Offices against Executive Action from March.

there was that one dimensional pompous prat on Postman Fluffy who sounds like Colonel Blimp sometimes , freely admitting to orchestrating strikes as " they'd no option " . Liked the Guardian Comment about RM Senior Managers who think they're running a 18th Century Jamaican Sugar Plantation , usually it's Mill Owners !

To represent the CWU , there's bumbling Billy - God Help us !

[k979aaa]

Utter boll@cks i am far from LONDON but imposition diktat lies lapsing (look that one up lazy journalist) and later start times and not least closure of mail centers and two in a van!. Is happening to all as well as 10% year on year savings their is nothing left to give but blood sweat and tears!. We all posties are p!ssed off the way royalmail is runDOWN by royalmails own management for their own gain and profit!.

[andy2007]

Another lazy journalist repeating RM propaganda about it all starting in London.
If they could be bothered to do a bit of research they would know that action was
taken regularly in Scottish Delivery Offices against Executive Action from March.

there was that one dimensional pompous prat on Postman Fluffy who sounds like Colonel Blimp sometimes , freely admitting to orchestrating strikes as " they'd no option " . Liked the Guardian Comment about RM Senior Managers who think they're running a 18th Century Jamaican Sugar Plantation , usually it's Mill Owners !

To represent the CWU , there's bumbling Billy - God Help us !

I missed that comment. Could you give us a Link, so we can reply to him.