Royal Mail workers to strike for 19 days in dispute over pay

Action will have ‘dramatic impact’ over Black Friday period and lead up to Christmas, says union

Royal Mail workers are to strike for a further 19 days across October and November in a long-running dispute over pay and conditions.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) said the action by its members will have a “dramatic impact” on peak mail periods such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the lead-up to Christmas.

Walkouts will be a mixture of single days and rolling action across Royal Mail Group’s (RMG) network, the CWU said.

The union, which represents 115,000 postal workers, said the move follows a threat centred around the “outrageous” decision by RMG’s senior management to withdraw from major national agreements, push ahead with cuts to workers’ terms and conditions and “completely sideline” the union.

The strike vote came on the eve of a planned walkout on Wednesday.

Dave Ward, general secretary of the CWU, said RMG leaders were “treating postal workers as if they are stupid”.

“These are the same people that have kept the country connected and returned Royal Mail Group to record profit,” he said.

Mr Ward pleaded with the public to “stand with their local postal worker” as they face “the fight of their lives to save their jobs”.

“We will not stand by and see the Royal Mail Group become the next P&O but we need your backing to win,” he added.

The strikes come days after Royal Mail said it had informed the CWU that it wanted to “modernise the ways of working with them”. On Tuesday, the company declined to elaborate on what changes they were specifically seeking but said it was discussing it with the CWU.

Royal Mail postal workers picket outside a delivery office, in north London on 8 September (AFP/Getty)

Royal Mail said CWU had ignored an offer for talks facilitated by Acas, the government’s arbitration service. A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “This evening, rather than responding to our offer of Acas talks, the CWU announced further damaging industrial action, once again taking the path of prolonging disruption over resolution.

“Royal Mail is losing £1m a day and must change faster in response to changing customer demands. We operate in a competitive market, and our customers have choices.”

The company said strikes will make its financial situation worse and apologised to customers for the coming inconvenience.

Strikes began early this summer as postal workers demanded a “proper pay rise” after being offered 2 per cent at a time when inflation nears double figures.

The CWU said its strikes were the biggest of a summer which also saw walkouts by rail workers, Openreach engineers, BT call centre staff, refuse collectors and barristers.