Post strike due next week after ultimatum fails

[Stormproof]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/1 ... ail-unions" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Post strike due next week after ultimatum fails

Royal Mail and Communication Workers Union appear as far away as ever from resolving dispute

Royal Mail managers are understood to have warned that agreeing to union demands would be financial suicide. Photograph: Martin Godwin

A national postal strike is set to go ahead next week after Royal Mail rejected a last-ditch ultimatum from unions to meet a new list of demands over pay and working conditions.

The Communications Workers Union had warned that unless Royal Mail agreed by Thursday to the "peace deal" on offer, it would go ahead with industrial action.

Royal Mail responded by saying the threat was a "blatant and deplorable attack on customers and on the future of the postal services".

The two sides tonight appeared as far as ever from resolving the dispute, with little chance of averting a national strike.

In a letter to the postal group today, the CWU called for a three-year agreement. The union is concerned that new walk sequencing machines, which speed up delivery rounds, will lead to compulsory redundancies. It said it would be willing to have independent consultants monitor staff workloads, and to talk to Royal Mail management.

Royal Mail managers were understood to have warned that agreeing to the demands would be financial suicide.

The CWU fears the prospect of industrial action is turning public opinion against the service. "The union is public enemy number one, and Royal Mail is public enemy number two," a source said.

The consultancy Post-Switch forecast that two or three days of a national strike would cost Royal Mail almost £120m. More than £60m of this business would be lost permanently, it said.

The business secretary, Lord Mandelson, said: "A national postal strike defies logic. It would be a suicidal act, turning more hard-pressed consumers and businesses away from using mail."

[barbario]

Time to put that open letter from the union in the papers i think.

[andy2007]

Actually, it's Mandy, Brydon, and Crozier, who're commiting Commercial Suicide. They were the ones who provoked this action. And now the entire Economy could pay the price for their incompetance and arrogance!

[shimmyrule]

cant we get a higson f**k off smiley thing, i reckon it would go down well , im fed up punching the other threes heads in. :cfo :lfo :mfo

[Night Tonic]

A whole library perhaps including Hayes

[borders]

Actually, it's Mandy, Brydon, and Crozier, who're commiting Commercial Suicide. They were the ones who provoked this action. And now the entire Economy could pay the price for their incompetance and arrogance!

exactly right , i cant get my head around the fact that the Labour Government are happy to let this run. they have decided that RM is no longer to be a Public service, that it is to become a cash cow for big business. whereas , basically big business used to subsidise the USO , now it is to be the public with future price increases and the workforce with poorer terms and conditions.

[barbario]

Thats one of the many reasons why New Labour are going to get hammered at the next election.

[borders]

well Geraldine Smith MP has put up an EDM , saying she welcomes the CWUs proposals, so lets see how that pans out.

[janitor]

Well apparently 60 MPs have signed it already.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Well apparently 60 MPs have signed it already.

64 as of 2 minutes ago

[banner18]

Thats one of the many reasons why New Labour are going to get hammered at the next election.

Shame that those slime ball conservatives will take their place. Why don't people have some balls in this country and vote the Greens in?