New post strikes are announced as stamp prices set to rise again
By The postal workers’ strike shows no sign of abating, after it emerged today that staff at the giant Filton sorting office will stage two 24-hour walkouts next week.
Drivers at the site are set to walk out for 24 hours from 4am on Thursday, with mail processors also holding a 24-hour stoppage from 4am the following day.
Dave Wilshere from the Communication Workers Union (CWU) in Bristol added the action would be followed by a further strike of about 1,000 workers in delivery depots early the following week.
The action is the latest in a long line of strikes by Royal Mail staff, which began in the summer, over a row with bosses over pay, terms, conditions, work-rates and job security.
Royal Mail has said that changes to the way the company is run is essential if it is to survive – claiming the volume of mail being sent is falling 10% year-on-year, thanks to online technology and delivery competition.
Homes and businesses have been hit by the strike action, with an estimated 1.5million items of mail not delivered across the city. Members of the CWU are currently being balloted over a full national strike, the results of the ballot will be known within the next two weeks.
The latest strikes come after it emerged that stamp prices are to rise again. The Daily Mail reported yesterday that the industry regulator OfCom is planning to allow the Royal Mail to impose a series of inflation-busting increases.
First class post would go up three pence to 42p while second class would rise by two pence to 32p.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party conference backed a call for ministers to take responsibility for the multi-billion-pound funding gap in Royal Mail’s pension fund.
Billy Hayes, general secretary of the Communications Workers’ Union, told delegates the government had a “moral obligation” to finance the deficit, which he said was caused by Royal Mail’s decision to take a 13-year “pensions holiday” between 1990 and 2003, while postal workers continued to pay their pensions contributions.
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