Coventry post office staff set for further strike

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They mean Royal Mail staff I think

Nov 14 2007

By Cara Simpson


THE post office union in Coventry and Warwickshire has vowed members will stage another walk-out within two months.

Leaders of the Communications Workers' Union say they will strike even if their colleagues across the UK vote to approve a deal which was offered by Royal Mail during the series of national strikes in October.

The decision of the Coventry and Warwickshire branch to take the action was discussed at a meeting this week after members expressed their deep concern over the planned closures of both the city's Bishop Street sorting office and the main post office in Hertford Street.

The union is adamant that if Royal Mail bosses don't back down, they will strike to save the two sites.

This is regardless of any national decision to agree to Royal Mail's pay deal, which includes a 5.4 per cent pay rise over two years, with 1.5 per cent next year when reforms to the service are delivered. Post workers are still deciding whether to accept the deal.

Mick Kavanagh, chairman of the Coventry branch of the Communication Workers' Union, which represents most of the branch's workforce, said: "Within the next couple of months we will be taking some form of industrial action.

"We will continue to fight over the two closures because Coventry is the seventh biggest city and to lose Bishop Street would make it a distribution area without a sorting office, which is not acceptable.

"There are about 400 people whose jobs are at risk and we are not going to just stand by and let that happen."

The Coventry Telegraph reported last week that the Hertford Street outlet will close with the service transferred to WH Smith in West Orchards shopping centre in May.

A post office spokesman said there would be no compulsory redundancies among the 30 staff at Hertford Street.

More than 20,000 signatures against the plans have already been collected by the union and political parties.