POSTMEN: BACK TO THE BAD OLD DAYS
POSTMEN: BACK TO THE BAD OLD DAYS
From The Daily Mail May 24th, 2001
BY DARREN BEHAR
MILLIONS of letters lay uncollected last night as an illegal strike threatened to cripple postal services.
Post boxes across the country were sealed to avoid them overflowing.
With only 14 days to go to the election, the dispute – over shift patterns –could not have come at a worse time for the Government.
Tories immediately accused Labour of failing to clamp down on strikers because of the party’s dependence on union cash.
Spokesman David Heathcoat-Amory said: ‘The Government relies heavily on
unions for election funding and it has been noticeably soft over union
rights
· particularly in the last few months.
‘We are paying the price in terms of increased union militancy. We can expect more of the same if they are re-elected.’ Though the Post Office was reorganised this year and controversially renamed Consignia, the strikes recall the dark days of militancy in the old-style public services.
Other recent union actions have had the same roots. A damaging series of strikes by London Tube workers is continuing and there was a one-day stoppage earlier this week by college lecturers demanding a pay rise.
The Post Office, like the prison service, is one of the last bastions of old-fashioned localised union power. More than half the days lost to strikes last year came in the postal services. Many of the stoppages which have spread across the country since Friday are wildcat strikes, illegal because there has been no ballot, and technically not sanctioned by the Communications Workers Union.
Post boxes were sealed in Liverpool, Stockport, Chester and parts of Preston, London and Watford because of the build-up of mail.
It is already the worst postal strike since 1996, involving an estimated 10,000 workers, and Consignia bosses are desperate to stop it becoming a full- scale national dispute.
Last night they were holding urgent talks with union leaders.
But the company warned that it could take a week to restore services to normal even after a settlement.
A spokesman said: ‘We want to resolve this as fast as possible. We do not want to see customers inconvenienced any further.
‘The strikes are unnecessary. Ultimately business will suffer and jobs will be losses as a result.’ Consignia, of which Royal Mail is a subsidiary, has said it is also considering seeking legal advice about what action it can take over illegal strikes. An estimated 3.5mil-lion homes are now affected by the dispute, with some five million items uncollected or undelivered last night. The cost of the dispute to British businesses could be enormous.
Many families face anxious waits to see if they will receive crucial deliveries of items like holiday tickets and passports.
The strike is also affecting the mechanics of the general election itself.
Deliveries of poll cards – which tell people where to vote – have been hit and the postal voting system could be thrown into chaos.
The law on postal voting has been changed since the last general election, making it much easier to do, and a huge surge in applications has been predicted.
People in Stockport have already been told to collect application forms from council offices by hand because of the strike.
The disruption is certain to increase pressure on the industry regulator to take action against Consignia’s dominance of the delivery market.
Mr Heathcoat-Amory said: ‘Business and consumers face massive disruption without the option of an alternative postal operator.
‘Since March, the postal regulator has had powers to introduce competition.
Customers will expect action if this pattern of disruption continues.’ The regulator, Postcomm, has already threatened to fine Consignia and remove part of its licence if it fails to improve its service.
Peter Carr, chairman of consumer watchdog Postwatch, said: ‘The real losers are customers.
‘Prices are at an all-time high – and are proposed to increase further –while postal services have deteriorated to their worst for years.
‘The management needs urgently to regain control and the union needs to put an end to wildcat action.
‘Stop squabbling and start delivering.’ Susan Anderson, of the Confederation of British Industry, said: ‘Royal Mail should not have to put up with this type of disruption to its business and neither should businesses relying on the postal service. We condemn the action.’ The Department of Trade and Industry said there was no ‘justification’ for the disruption.
The action began when 800 union members at Watford, which covers most of Hertfordshire, stopped work, after a ballot, over changes to working patterns.
Royal Mail had wanted more staff to work through the night and early mornings when it is better to sort and deliver mail.
But workers opposed the moves, even though similar shift systems have been introduced in other regions.
Staff at other centres then refused to handle mail diverted from Watford.
By last night 15 of the 73 main centres for sorting post had been affected by the strikes. They include all five in London, where delivery had ‘ground to a halt’ yesterday.
Official industrial action is also looming across the capital. Union leaders are considering whether to ballot 15,000 delivery workers over working hours and pay.
Royal Mail chiefs were said to be ‘particularly disappointed’ because an independent review body had been recently set up to review industrial relations in the industry.
The review, backed by the CWU, has been asked to assess the present ‘unstable’ level of industrial relations.
