Bristol mail left piling high in sorting centres

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POSTAL strikes which saw workers take action in 19 delivery depots across the Bristol area yesterday will continue on Monday in the shape of a 48-hour walk-out.

More than 400 staff at the Severn Beach distribution centre will strike as part of an on-going national dispute with Royal Mail over pay, jobs and conditions.

Yesterday's action by 1,000 workers left thousands of homes and businesses across the region without their mail.

Postal deliveries will also be drastically reduced today.

The Severn Beach centre handles bulk mail, bank, insurance and internet shopping post, and next week's strike – part of a 20,000-strong walk-out across the country – will again hamper deliveries.

The recent strikes have left millions of items of post stuck in the system.

Kevin Beazer, South West regional secretary of the Communication Workers' Union (CWU), which represents the striking postmen, said: "Over the last two-and-a-half-weeks we have seen 1,000 sorting staff go on strike at the Bristol Mail Centre in Filton, 400 at the Severn Beach distribution centre and over 1,000 in delivery offices across Bristol.

"The result of this is that there is a large amount of post clogged up in the system waiting to be sorted and delivered."

According to the CWU, Royal Mail claims there are 10 million undelivered items of post nation-wide.

Royal Mail refused to confirm the figure, but the CWU said this was a "hugely conservative" estimate.

Mr Beazer said: "I would imagine the backlog in the Bristol area alone runs into millions of parcels, letters and packages, and mail is piling high in the Bristol Mail Centre."

The postal dispute has been running since July, triggered, according to the CWU, by Royal Mail breaking a national pay and modernisation agreement made in 2007.

In the last week Royal Mail bosses have reopened national negotiations with the CWU.

Mr Beazer said: "That is significant progress as they have not talked to us at all in the last few months."

The CWU said Royal Mail bosses were threatening job cuts, changes to working hours, cutting overtime and altering deliveries. But Royal Mail bosses again called on workers to end the strikes.

Spokeswoman Jaquie Stenson said: "More than 90 per cent of Royal Mail's people will be working normally on each of the coming days of local strike action and the company will continue to take every possible step to mitigate the impact of strikes.

"Royal Mail has met the union leadership this week in the latest of more than 60 meetings over recent months, and has again called on the CWU to end the disruption to customers' services.

"At the moment, however, it is clear the union's real focus is on damaging customer confidence, undermining the postal service, and on looking for any route to block the change and modernisation it claims to support."

But Mr Beazer said: "It is about defending the postal service."

[POSTMAN]

Good comments especially the 2nd one

[DGP1]

Good comments especially the 2nd one

Yes, well put Teebs