Tag: Royal Mail

Postal workers have sent letters to firms asking for support over the proposed closure of a sorting and delivery office.
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) sent letters to about 350 firms in Stoke-on-Trent over the closure of the Royal Mail office in Leek Road.

It says closing the depot will delay post and be bad for the local economy.

Royal Mail says it is looking for a new office to improve service to customers as well as staff working conditions.

Andy Plant, of the CWU, said it had already received about 60 responses from firms.

“Every single one registered their concern over the removal of services from Stoke-on-Trent,” he said.

Mr Plant said the closure would cause delays to postal deliveries.

“There will be delays in the pipeline – in orders, cheques – which will have an impact on these local economies, ” he said.

‘Downturn in quality’

The union says the move would mean all of Stoke-on-Trent’s post being sorted in Wolverhampton.

Mr Plant said about 70% of Stoke-on-Trent’s post was now sorted in Wolverhampton which had led to “downturn in the quality of service over the last 10 years”.

Royal Mail says the move would mean mail being processed in Wolverhampton but that a suitable site for a delivery office had not been identified but was “likely to be within the Stoke/Hanley” area.

Royal Mail’s Area General Manager Tom Willis said: “The additional space will also allow us to make our delivery operation run as smoothly as possible with the end result of improving the service we provide to our customers across the region.”

Royal Mail also says there would be no compulsory redundancies as a result of the move.

Royal Mail this week threw down the gauntlet to postal workers and their union by deciding to implement its proposed closure of the final salary pensions scheme with just seven days notice.

The company said that there would be no further negotiation with the unions, and that the “consultation” with the scheme’s members was over.

Royal Mail is also spreading scare stories that unless there is “pensions reform” the company could be put in liquidation.

This is nonsense. The idea that the state-owned company that delivers most of Britain’s mail could simply go out of business is politically untenable.

The postal workers’ CWU union is conducting a consultative ballot on whether to accept Royal Mail’s pensions proposals. It will now find that bosses have closed the scheme before their result is even announced.

It is vital that the union moves fast to reclaim the initiative on the pensions issue. The consultative ballot must be followed with a swift announcement of a ballot for national strike action in defence of pension rights – with the demand that the government must be forced to step in to deal with the pensions deficit.