Postal staff to strike

The Communication Workers Union said up to 130,000 of its members will walk out on October 5 and again on October 8, effectively crippling deliveries for five days, following the failure to reach a deal.

A rolling programme of strikes will start on October 15 and will continue every week until the row is resolved.

The threatened disruption to deliveries will be the worst since the dispute began earlier this year and will cost firms millions of pounds in lost business, it was warned.

The union announced the new strikes after weeks of talks failed to break a deadlocked dispute over pay and jobs.

The union said it remained committed to reaching an agreement which benefited the business and workers and would continue talking to management.

Postal workers have staged four national strikes and other forms of industrial action since the summer after rejecting a 2.5% pay offer and the Royal Mail's modernisation plans, which the union claimed would cost 40,000 jobs.

The union claimed the Royal Mail was pressing ahead with changes to pensions, including increased employee contributions and later retirement age, and later starts to shifts.

The Royal Mail condemned the new strikes and said it will now start to implement the changes it insists are needed to modernise the business amid increased competition.

Sunday collections, which it said only accounted for 1% of all mail collections, will stop from the end of October, while early shifts will start an hour later from October 8. The company accused the union of failing to produce any "serious" proposals to resolve the dispute.