Royal Mail delivers new blow to workers

A last minute change of plan by Royal Mail still means more than 300 postal workers in Reading face redundancy.

Royal Mail announced a new GBP 20 million plan to modernize postal services last Friday which will see mail centre’s in Swindon and Gloucester remaining with Reading and Oxford closing down.

The new plan spells a reprieve for the Gloucester Mail Centre and an unexpected blow for workers in Oxford.

But the plan has always envisaged the closure and sale of the Reading Mail Centre in Caversham Road in January 2009 to pay for a massive redevelopment and technological upgrade at the Swindon site.

Communications Workers’ Union (CWU) branch letters secretary Wayne Levy, based in Reading, said he would be seeking an urgent meeting with bosses to get an explanation for the change.

He said: “We don’t understand how this adds up. The sale of the Reading and Gloucester sites were meant to pay for the redevelopment of Swindon and for the redundancies.

“The Oxford Mail Centre is not in the ownership of Royal Mail and it will actually cost them to close it.

“This will lead to an inevitable deterioration in the service. Now there will be no mail centre on a line south between Birmingham and Southampton.”

He said postal workers were already in dispute with the management over proposals to delay the start of the working day from 5am to 6am from Monday, October 8.

The jobs under threat belong to the 300 to 350 workers behind the scenes in the sorting office – many of whom work through the night to ensure next-day delivery.

The postmen and women who deliver the mail will still be based in Reading, working from a delivery centre.

He said Royal Mail was also withdrawing company redundancy agreements.

Reading East MP Rob Wilson said: “I have done everything I can to save the jobs in my constituency, including arranging a meeting with Postal Services Minister Jim Fitzpatrick for all parties involved.