Post Office Christmas Week strike
The CWU has announced that UK postal workers will stage five days of strikes over the Christmas Week. “Commencing Monday 19th December and including Saturday Christmas Eve, thousands of Post Office workers will be walking out on strike from workplaces across the country,” said the CWU in a statement issued yesterday (12 December).
The Christmas walkout follows on from “Days of Action” earlier this month and in October and November.
Commenting on why the union has called the strike, CWU assistant secretary Andy Furey said: “Our members want the Post Office management to pause its closure and privatisation programme, hold off on its planned pensions changes, and commit to sitting down with us and with the other key stakeholders of this Great British institution and, together, construct a lasting vision.”
The strike will likely affect Crown Post offices, but not the 11,ooo branch offices which are run as independent businesses.
Assuming it goes ahead, the postal workers’ protest will cap a strike-heavy Christmas run-up. A walk-out by train drivers this week has brought thousands of Southern rail services to a standstill – reportedly causing the worst disruption to the rail network in 20 years. And the Unite union informed Post&Parcel this morning that drivers working for Wincanton based at Argos’ flagship national distribution centre (NDC) in Staffordshire will strike for three days from midnight on Tuesday 20 December.
