Thousands of Postal workers are on strike again on Friday over a bitter dispute of working conditions and pay.
The Communications Workers Union (CWU) claims that Royal Mail had imposed a 2% pay increase without any consultation.
The union claims that Royal Mail are “refusing” to treat their workers with respect, the general secretary Dave Ward has said.
On Sunday they will walk out again and there is also planned strikes throughout December in the lead up to Christmas and then again on Christmas Eve they will walk out again.
Ward said, “Royal Mail bosses are risking a Christmas meltdown because of their stubborn refusal to treat their employees with respect.
“Postal workers want to get on with serving the communities they belong to, delivering Christmas gifts and tackling the backlog from recent weeks.
“But they know their value, and they will not meekly accept the casualisation of their jobs, the destruction of their conditions and the impoverishment of their families.
“This can be resolved if Royal Mail begin treating their workers with respect, and meet with the union to resolve this dispute.”
A Royal Mail spokesperson said, “We spent three more days at Acas this week to discuss what needs to happen for the strikes to be lifted.
“In the end, all we received was another request for more pay, without the changes needed to fund the pay offer.
“The CWU know full well that in a business losing more than £1 million a day, we need to agree changes to the way we work so that we can fund the pay offer of up to 9% we have already made.
“While the CWU refuses to accept the need for change, it’s our customers and our people who suffer. Strike action has already cost our people £1,200 each.
“The money allocated to the pay deal risks being eaten away by the costs of further strike action.
“The CWU is striking at our busiest time, deliberately holding Christmas to ransom for our customers, businesses and families across the country.
“We are doing everything we can to deliver Christmas for our customers and settle this dispute. During the last strike days, we delivered more than 700,000 parcels, and more than 11,000 delivery and processing staff returned to work.
“We recovered our service quickly, but the task becomes more challenging as Christmas nears.
“We remain willing to talk at any time about our best and final offer and urge the CWU to call off their damaging strike action.”
