Grantham postmen out on strike

Postal workers walked out today (Thursday) in the first of 19 days of strike action amid a long-running dispute over pay and working conditions.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) said its 115,000 members across the UK are taking action, describing it as the largest strike in a year that has seen unrest across a multitude of sectors, including rail workers and barristers.

Picket lines were mounted outside Royal Mail offices across the country, including Wharf Road, Grantham.

It marks the CWU’s sixth day of action in recent months – and the first in 19 days of strikes it has planned in the build-up to the busy Christmas period.

The CWU has accused the Royal Mail of planning structural change, which it says would effectively see employees in secure, well-paid jobs turned into a “casualised, financially precarious workforce overnight”.

The union says the plans include delaying the arrival of post to members of the public by three hours, cuts in workers’ sick pay and inferior terms for new employees.

General secretary Dave Ward said: “Postal workers face the biggest ever assault on their jobs, terms and conditions in the history of Royal Mail.

“The public and businesses also face the end of daily deliveries and destruction of the special relationship that postal workers and the public have in every community in the UK.

“It is insulting the intelligence of every postal worker for Royal Mail chief executive Simon Thompson to claim that their change agenda is ‘modernisation’.

“It is nothing more than an asset stripping business plan that will see the break-up of the company and the end of Royal Mail as a major contributor to the UK economy.

“Royal Mail Group claim to be losing £1 million a day. The CWU believe these figures need to be scrutinised.”

A Royal Mail spokesman said: “Three weeks ago, Royal Mail invited the CWU to enter talks through Acas to find a resolution to our change and pay dispute. We have not reached an agreement with the CWU on this request.

“Royal Mail is losing £1 million a day and must change faster in response to changing customer demands.”