Three more Bristol postal strikes

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http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/homepage ... ticle.html

Wednesday, August 26, 2009, 07:00

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More than 2,500 postal workers across the Bristol area are set to strike on three separate days over the next week.

The move, triggered by an ongoing dispute over pay, jobs and conditions, will leave homes and businesses all across the region with undelivered mail.

Tomorrow 400 drivers and sorting staff at the Severn Beach distribution centre will down tools from 4am for 24 hours.

Later on tomorrow 200 collection and distribution drivers at the Bristol Mail Centre in Filton will walk out.

Postmen delivering mail to houses across the city will not be on strike tomorrow, but on Friday there will be lighter residential deliveries because of tomorrow's strike.

Further industrial action is scheduled for Tuesday, when 1,100 mail sorters at the Bristol Mail Centre will stop work for 24 hours from 1.30pm. There will be no deliveries on Wednesday and a lighter delivery on Thursday.

And 1,000 staff from 19 delivery depots across Bristol and beyond will go on strike at the end of next week.

The Bristol and District Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents postal workers, said the strikes were a reaction to Royal Mail breaking a national pay and modernisation agreement made in 2007.

Richard Hall, a spokesman for Royal Mail, said contingency plans, including using managers to deliver post, would minimise disruption to services.

Mr Hall said: "We again condemn the CWU for striking over much-needed modernisation and change which has already been successfully implemented in the majority of offices around the UK and is working well. The union claims to support modernisation, yet acts to destroy it."