Government pleads with both sides in UK postal strike

The government pleaded with both sides in the postal strike to resolve the conflict before serious damage was done to the economy. Patricia Hewitt, the Trade Secretary, said that both the Royal Mail and the wildcat strikers, whose unofficial action has brought the postal system to a halt, should resolve their dispute. "Customers are losing their mail, postal workers are losing their pay, and neither megaphone diplomacy nor unofficial action will solve the problem," she said. "Both sides need to put all efforts into working with Acas [the arbitration service] to reach an agreement and stop this damaging action." Ms Hewitt's intervention, which was dismissed as inadequate by opposition politicians, came as the Royal Mail claimed to have evidence that the strikes were being orchestrated by union officials, which, if true, would be in breach of the law. The company said that a clandestine meeting had been held near London's largest sorting office, in King's Cross, shortly before the number of stoppages markedly increased. "There is no doubt in our minds that the meeting took place," a Royal Mail spokesman said yesterday. "There was an escalation of the action shortly afterwards." Inciting union members to strike without a full ballot is illegal and the union could see its funds seized if a court accepts that the Communication Workers Union is behind the strike. The union, which lost a national ballot for strike action over pay six weeks ago, has denied that it is responsible for organising the strike. More than 20,000 postal workers are taking part in the illegal action, causing large piles of undelivered mail in sorting offices. Tesco, the supermarket chain, has already switched to a private mail company, and Amazon, Britain's largest on-line retailer, yesterday abandoned the Royal Mail for one of its competitors. Talks are due to resume between Royal Mail managers and the CWU at Acas tomorrow. Failure of the negotiations could see the stoppages spreading nationwide in the run-up to Christmas. Despite Ms Hewitt's intervention, ministers are privately urging her to do more to take on the militants in the postal unions if the strikes spread. "If anarchy gets these guys a good deal, we could see anarchy breaking out all over," said one last night. Postcomm, the industry's regulator, lifted restrictions on licensed private firms this weekend, allowing them to deliver private, as well as business, mail. Hays Commercial Services Ltd, TPG Post (UK) Ltd, UK Mail Ltd, Express Ltd and TNT UK Ltd are all free to deliver "unrestricted mail services to any customer". Postcomm officials privately admit that there is little hope that the five companies involved would be able to expand their operations in time to relieve the effects of the strike, however. Allan Leighton, the Royal Mail chairman, pledged to do his best to resolve the dispute. "Everybody has got to hold their hands up to this, including me," he said. "I'm not interested in point-scoring. I just want to get everybody back to work and do the right thing for our customers. We have a very simple objective here – we're trying to have a modern company with a modern union, creating the best postal service in the world." The Royal Mail disclosed yesterday that it was ready to take legal action against the Communication Workers Union if talks aimed at breaking the strikes failed to reach a breakthrough. The company said that it had been collecting evidence of alleged union involvement in the strikes since they began two weeks ago. "We are keeping all options open to us and that includes the possibility of legal action," said a Royal Mail spokesman. The union said the "spying" was "an absolute disgrace".