Talks deadlock as UK Royal Mail strikes spread

Unofficial mail strikes have spread around England, with ministers refusing to rule out intervention if the strikes escalated.

Two-thirds of London’s 28,000 postal workers again stayed at home and wildcat industrial action erupted at Royal Mail offices in Milton Keynes, Coventry, Preston and Portsmouth.

The strike started in west London, triggered by the suspension of a van driver, but has since spread across London and the south-east.

The lack of a postal service in the capital is likely to create serious mail delays elsewhere and Royal Mail said it would start taping up post boxes soon to stop them overflowing and letters being lost.

Royal Mail management and the Communication Workers’ Union held a second day of emergency talks in an effort to get staff back to work, but the talks were adjourned with few signs of an end to the deadlock.

Earlier in the week, Adam Crozier, Royal Mail chief executive, claimed the CWU was co-ordinating the industrial action despite its official condemnation.

Dave Ward, deputy general secretary of the CWU, replied that Royal Mail had “deliberately orchestrated the current situation”.

The government said the resolution of the dispute remained, for the present, a matter for the management and the unions. But ministers are concerned by the increasing damage the dispute is causing to the financial position of Royal Mail, as well as to the wider business community.