City councillor supports union's Royal Mail job loss fear

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A CITY councillor has vowed to back union leaders over "worrying" Royal Mail plans to move work from Derby's sorting depot to Nottingham.

Boulton ward councillor Ranjit Banwait said he fears the move could mean a loss of jobs at the depot, in Midland Road, if the proposals went ahead.

Union leaders have expressed similar concerns but managers have insisted no jobs of Derby employees would be lost as a result of the transfer and the changes were part of its "modernising" programme.

Councillor Banwait said his father, Harbhajan, who worked at the depot for more than 30 years, fought similar plans during his time there.

He also said the city should be attracting more work, rather than losing it to neighbours.

"My father always said he had to fight a number of battles over the decades, with the last one just before he retired in 1996.

"He said, at that time, they wanted to relocate work to Leicester and they opposed it then and, in the end, the management backtracked.

"There's been a long history of ridiculous plans to save costs and, ultimately, these plans don't seem to empathise with workers on the frontline.

"This new plan seems totally against reason, which is why I am standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the unions on this matter, whatever campaign they decide to do."

He said he would be writing to Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier, Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, Derby Labour group leader Chris Williamson and Derby MPs Bob Laxton and Margaret Beckett about the matter.

Harbhajan Banwait, known to his colleagues as "Budgie", worked at Royal Mail from June 1964 to June 1997 and received a long-service award for 30 years' work in 1995.

His son, who also spent the summer holidays of 1996 working at the depot, said he had admiration for his father's hard work and for all those working at the depot.

"It is a really hard job and I only truly realised that when I worked there," said the Labour councillor. "They are just ordinary, hard-working people trying to support their families and it's just a big concern that less work at the depot could endanger their jobs – it's a logical conclusion.

"Even during the weeks I worked at the depot, there were fears over workers losing overtime and they had to fight once again and, once again, the plans were shelved.

"I think Royal Mail needs to shelve these plans as well."

Royal Mail said the sorting of 150,000 second-class items of mail would be transferred to Nottingham from Wednesday. The workload will be transferred from the early shift at the Midland Road depot, where 250 employees sort the mail.

Another 350 delivery staff are based there and the Communication Workers' Union is calling for reassurances that the cut in workload will not result in job losses.