Further strikes take toll on UK services
Thousands of postal workers in the UK are in the middle of further strike action in a long-running dispute over plans to modernise the service. The BBC report that “The Communication Workers Union (CWU) said around 12,000 of its members were involved in the action, affecting deliveries and collections” on 12 August.
The article continues:
The CWU accuses Royal Mail of “bullying tactics” over its modernisation plans.
But managers insisted that union leaders were intent on trying to undermine much-needed change.
Strikes will spread to the south-west of the country on 13 August, followed by Basildon on 14 August and locations across the Midlands on 17 August.
The union has announced plans to ballot all its postal-worker members for a national strike in September, threatening the worst disruption to mail deliveries for two years.
“Postal workers are being hit hard with closures, cut-backs, a pay freeze and an increasingly bullying management that refuses to negotiate,” said the union’s general secretary Dave Ward.
“Recent meetings cannot be called ‘talks’ as Royal Mail does all the talking and is not interested in the concerns or ideas of the CWU.”
Royal Mail accused the union of breaking an agreement that ended the 2007 strike and of refusing to co-operate with modernisation.
A spokesman said: “Royal Mail has a clear vision of creating a modernised and market-leading business in which we are investing around £2bn.”
