Christmas post faces disruption from strikes

[Geezer]

http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/4 ... m_strikes/

1:10pm Saturday 31st October 2009


THE PUBLIC were yesterday put on alert over the threat of huge disruption to the Christmas post.

As businesses looked to alternative means of sending and receiving the post, Royal Mail managers and leaders of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) were locked in further talks over the dispute.

Strikes continued for a second day yesterday, and more will be held today, after around 43,700 workers staged a 24-hour stoppage yesterday in the long-running row over jobs, pay and modernisation.

A CWU spokeswoman said: “We’re hoping for as many talks as possible. The urgency is obviously rising.”

The CWU’s postal executive held back from naming more strike dates as frantic efforts were made to get the negotiations back on track.

But the union’s general secretary Billy Hayes said there was “every prospect” industrial action will now be stepped up, while the union is still considering whether to take legal action over Royal Mail's move to hire 30,000 agency workers to deal with the backlog of mail caused by the strike as well as the Christmas rush.

Hopes of averting the latest action collapsed on Wednesday despite three days of talks between the two sides held under the chairmanship of TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

Royal Mail managing director Mark Higson said the sticking point to the dispute was resistance to modernisation in certain parts of the country, adding that agreement had been reached in many areas.

The Royal Mail was "very concerned" about the effect of the strikes on customers, but Mr Higson said disruption would be "limited".

A backlog of 30 million letters caused by two strikes last week had been reduced to less than two million and Mr Higson said he was confident delayed mail caused by the new walkouts will be cleared by early next week.

Sidebars Mr Hayes said: “We will be upping the dispute. We will not be scaling it down. There is every prospect that we will increase the action and we could be looking at longer strikes."