Consignia and the postal workers’ union have struck a deal over job losses at the former Post Office which avoids compulsory sackings and makes a damaging nationwide strike much less likely.
Officials at the Communication Workers Union have claimed an agreement negotiated in the past few days provides guarantees that 30,000 redundancies over the next three years will be voluntary.
THE THREAT of a national postal strike may have been one of the most feared industrial disputes in recent months, raising the prospect of sealed postboxes and backlogs of mail, but it has already happened — and no one noticed.
Postal union representatives last week went on strike for all of 15 minutes. The Communication Workers Union held the mini-strike last Tuesday to keep its options open for future action amid pay talks that began last autumn and, despite an apparent settlement a few weeks ago, still drag on.
THE Communication Workers’ Union is to cut its donations to the Labour Party. Billy Hayes, the general secretary, said yesterday it would cut its funding by pounds 500,000 over the next three years, a third of the CWU’s usual donation. “Like any other organisation, we have a limited budget. We have to make decisions about how best to campaign on behalf of our members in the postal industry and in telecommunications.” The CWU, the largest postal workers’ union, has threatened strike action over plans by Consignia, formerly the Post Office, to make a further 10,000 staff redundant in addition to almost 5,000 job losses announced earlier this year.
Read MoreTHE main postal union could face “intolerable pressure” to break its link with the Labour Party because of the Government’s lack of action over problems at the Post Office.
In an interview with The Times, Billy Hayes, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, said that he expected an upsurge in calls to sever the link at the union’s conference.
The Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union said Friday they had tentatively agreed on a pay deal for 160,000 postal workers.
The union had threatened to strike this month if a deal had not been reached.
Royal Mail, a subsidiary of Consignia PLC, said the agreement would raise basic pay by 6.9 percent by April 2003, including a 2.1 percent hike backdated to Oct. 1.
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