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Post strike: fear of Christmas walk-outs
Dick Murray, Kiran Randhawa and Joe Murphy22.10.09
London today faces a £300million blow from the postal strike as fears grow of more walk-outs in the approach to Christmas.
Pickets were in place outside the capital's three main sorting offices as Royal Mail bosses accused workers of deliberately "maximising the damage" to customers.
As they spoke, the cost of the damaging dispute was being estimated, with the Centre for Economics and Business Research saying the total bill to the UK economy of a prolonged strike could be £1.5billion. Some £270million of this will be a loss to retailers.
The last national strike two years ago cost London around £300million, and experts fear similar damage.
Mail bosses said the two-day national stoppage was staggered to hold up as many postal items as possible, while minimising the effect on workers' pay packets.
Operations director Paul Tolhurst said some items posted yesterday would be delivered today, but admitted letters posted today would be delayed for "days rather than weeks".
Some 15million items are already stuck in the post and this could increase to 135million if the Communication Workers' Union announces more strike dates today for next week.
Mr Tolhurst admitted the UK-wide action, involving 42,000 mail centre staff and drivers today and 78,000 delivery and collection staff tomorrow, would hit services. He said: "Clearly backlogs will build up. We handle around 75million letters a day. The purpose of the strike is to damage customer service."
Hopes of an early resolution were clouded by claims and counter-claims over who blocked a potential deal on Tuesday night that could have averted the strike. The unions accused ministers or the Royal Mail of vetoing the draft agreement, but Government sources claimed that the CWU negotiator Dave Ward agreed it, only to be over-ruled by the union's executive.
It came amid rumours the CWU could call another three-day strike from next Thursday. Official sources denied the claims, but were set to announce more strikes before tomorrow.
Mr Ward joined strikers outside Mount Pleasant and directed blame at Business Secretary Lord Mandelson. He said: "Lord Mandelson is being vindictive. We need him to stop sitting on the sidelines.
"After 30 hours of talks we seemed to be making progress and there was a period of calm, then all of a sudden the chief executive of Royal Mail threw it all out. It's very obvious there were external forces at work here.
"It seems Lord Mandelson is seeking revenge on us over the whole privatisation battle. This is payback time for us defeating his plans." But Lord Mandelson hit back and called on workers to go back to work, saying the two sides needed to get back round the negotiating table.
Gordon Brown condemned the strike but turned a deaf ear to increasingly angry union demands that the Government get embroiled in negotiations.
The strike was called after 76 per cent of CWU members backed a national walk-out over modernisation. They fear mechanised sorting of post rounds will lead to further job losses.
Pickets were out this morning at Mount Pleasant, in Clerkenwell, Nine Elms, in Vauxhall, and the sorting office in Bromley-by-Bow.
Reader views (5)
No need for stamps and cards then, looks like i am going to save a lot of money over Christmas.
Seasons greetings Royal Mail.
- Mr S.Port, London
The strike will save me the cost of many Christmas cards and their postage. I will also avoid the Royal Mail for much of my business mail.
I suspect Royal Mail income will suffer greatly because of their stupid strikers, thus reducing their future wage bill. Bring on the modernisation.
- Michael, London, UK
Not much chance of them striking over Christmas. That's when they make most money from overtime and unexpected 'bonuses' that fall out of Christmas cards.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one
Lots of people are loosing there jobs.... So these strikers should get real to life..... They are lucky to have jobs.... There are plenty of unemployed out there who would given half a chance take there jobs from them....
- Ziz, Farnham uk
I for one do not want to see the Post Office privatised as the record of other public utilities which have gone a similar way is not good. However the actions of the trade unions make this increasingly likely. They fail to realise that whilst modernisation may result in some job losses the cost of jobs would be far greater if the post office is privatised. The current stance by the unions makes this a distinct possibility. Those who can remember back to Callaghan's final few months in power will see a distinct similarity with the situation now. At the very time when the government needs all of the support it can get the unions seem intent on pressing the self destruct button once again . Callaghan made a very relevant comment shortly before he was defeated when he stated that the country would get the government it deserves which was a direct reference to the previous winter of discontent. This time round the country is in a far worse economic situation than it was then and the unions must accept that their are other considerations other than the interests of their members. I do not believe that 76 % members are in favour of the strike and as usual peer pressure may have influenced the numbers voting for strike action. Mandelson may well be active behind the scenes but I think it is important that the public see him playing a leading role in trying to avert what could be a disater for business.
- Robin Brittain, Wolverhampton UK
