Labour puts pressure on to end post strike

Labour puts pressure on to end post strike
From The London Evening Standard May 24th, 2001
BY MARK BENHAM

THE GOVERNMENT has intervened in the escalating postal strike and told unions and Royal Mail to solve the dispute without delay.
As hundreds more postmen joined the wildcat strike, it emerged that both the Communications Workers Union and Royal Mail have received calls from senior Labour officials worried that the wildcat action will hamper postal voting.
Labour has taken advantage of new rules to flood marginal seats with postal vote forms. If the strike worsens as union officials are warning, all election material such as ballot cards, candidates’ literature and postal vote applications could be affected.
Millions of letters and parcels went undelivered today – the third day of the strike – to homes and businesses across London. Up to 15million items of mail have piled up already.
A CWU source today said the union and Royal Mail had been “leaned on by Millbank” – a claim that Labour’s headquarters refused to comment on.
Meanwhile, staff at Watford – where the dispute began – were due to vote on a peace proposal agreed by CWU leaders and Royal Mail management last night.
Even if they accept the deal, it is looking increasingly likely that Royal Mail’s volatile London workforce will stay out in protest over sweeping changes in the capital.
Previous deals agreed by the CWU nationally have been rejected by strikers, and this has happened twice at Watford recently.
Up to 15,000 strikers in London did not report for shifts today.
They were joined by the delivery offices serving E6, E7, E12, E13, SW1, SW4, SW6, SW15 and SW16. By lunchtime, the NW2, NW4, NW5, NW9 and NW11 offices had also walked out.
Post boxes across much of London are sealed and little mail is being sorted.
All sorting staff across London and growing numbers of postmen are refusing to work.
It is threatening to develop into the first national postal strike for five years. During the night, mail centres at Green-ford, Dartford, Milton Keynes and Tyneside joined the 19 mail centres already out. A Royal Mail spokesman said today: “Both the union and Royal Mail agree it is in the best interests of customers and employees that there is a swift and complete return to work.”
Royal Mail was today advising customers either to take mail to Post Office outlets or, where possible, to post boxes outside the London postal districts.
Most addresses in east and southeast London will not receive deliveries today.
The dispute started last week when 800 Watford members of the CWU took action over changes to working practices including overtime and shift patterns. It quickly spread to London’s five mail centres where staff refused to handle mail sorted by management.
The strikers say they are protesting against Royal Mail’s failure to negotiate sufficiently on the new arrangements. The company claims the strikers are “blacking the mail” – a Seventies union tactic of refusing to handle mail from other centres on strike.
Several thousand more workers at Heathrow, Maidstone, Liverpool, Manchester and north Wales are taking part in the strike.
Meanwhile, delivery staff are involved in a separate dispute over the alleged suspension of three postmen in southeast London for refusing to handle election material.
John Keggie, deputy general secretary of the CWU, said the talks leading to today’s proposed deal “have been constructive and they have tackled the underlying problems”.
Strikers in London will go back to work if their demands over a shorter working week are met and the three postmen suspended in southeast London are reinsated.
500,000 London small firms at risk LONDON’S half million small businesses face being pushed into the red if the postal strike lasts into next week and beyond.
Business groups warned that smaller firms dependent on orders and cheques through the post could be “genuinely damaged” by a lengthy strike. The Federation of Small Businesses said “many will show a blip in turnover and go into the red on their overdraft” if deliveries remain stalled.
A spokesman said: “Even in the age of email and fax, most important business is done by post. Many small businesses start the working day with what’s in the post – what orders have arrived and what cheques need to be cashed.”
Firms most at risk include the thousands of small manufacturing concerns which employ less than 20 staff and generally have an annual turnover of no more than £100,000.
Other vulnerable sectors of the capital’s economy are the theatre and leisure industry, whose tickets can go astray, and printing firms, which rely on getting copies and proofs through the post.