UK postal strike threatens to involve other unions

Postal workers have announced they will stage a one-day strike in London on Wednesday 1st October. They also threatened to carry out action with other unions if their dispute was not settled.

The Communication Workers’ Union, which wants increased pay weighting in the capital, may co-ordinate future strikes with Unison, the local government union.

The CWU said more than 20,000 London postal workers would strike in an action that would have “a massive impact” on mail deliveries in the rest of the country.

Dave Ward, the union’s deputy general secretary, warned further stoppages could follow. “We understand that this could be a long campaign,” he said.

Mr Ward suggested that CWU members could join a planned walk-out of Unison council workers set for October 16.

Nick Wright, Unison’s regional general secretary for London, told the Financial Times that the idea was “excellent”, adding that Unison “would be happy to co-ordinate strike action with the CWU”.

The joint action could spread even further. Unison is today holding talks with two other unions representing local government workers – the GMB and the Transport and General Workers’ Union – to discuss “combining resources”, Mr Wright said.

The CWU’s strikes are part of its campaign for a rise in the London weighting allowance to Pounds 4,000 a year to reflect its higher cost of living. The Royal Mail is offering Pounds 300 on the existing allowance of Pounds 3,484 for workers in inner London and Pounds 2,368 for those in outer London. Although the union narrowly lost a vote on a national postal strike last week, a separate ballot resulted in solid backing for London-wide action.

Co-ordinated strike action by unions in different workforces is extremely rare. A spokeswoman for the Trades Union Congress said such action was lawful “as long as individual unions are only having a dispute with their employer over their own particular issue”.

On the question of a national postal strike, Billy Hayes, general secretary of the CWU, said losing last week’s vote did “not mean the issue of pay is closed” and Royal Mail still needed union co-operation to implement planned reforms.

Most London-based delivery and sorting staff are expected to stop work on Wednesday. Most post offices are run by self-employed subpostmasters and so will stay open. Royal Mail said it would ensure they had enough cash to make benefit payments. It said it would also try to deliver guaranteed items.