Royal Mail strike - live: Postal workers hold rally in London as walkout causes delays

Postal workers at Royal Mail have begun a wave of strikes in the run-up to Christmas that will impact services across the UK.

The Communications Workers Union (CWU) have called on their members who collect, sort and deliver parcels and letters to strike on 9 December, 11 December, 14 December and 15 December.

The walkouts involve 115,000 workers and are taking place due to a bitter dispute over pay and conditions. The union has said its members want a pay rise that matches the soaring cost of living.

Holly Bancroft reports:

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has said the Government wants to avoid agreeing to the pay demand of striking workers as it will risk locking in high inflation across the UK economy.

He told the Financial Times’ Global Boardroom webinar: “We have to be really careful not to agree to pay demands that have the opposite of the intended effect because they lock in high inflation.

“So if we make the wrong choices now, we won’t have that 3.7% of inflation in January or February of 2024 and this will change from being a one-off problem, to being a permanent problem, which will be the worst possible thing for people working in public services.

“That is why it’s generally a very difficult issue.”

When asked whether the Treasury played a role in blocking rail workers’ demands for a 10% pay rise, he said the Treasury, Number 10 and individual spending departments are united in their approach to the situation.

“There is unanimity across the Government in that it wants high inflation to be temporary, and I think there is understanding that that is essential for the very people who are feeling most angry about their situation”, he added.

The CWU (The Communication Workers Union) has shared a photo depicting the mass attendance at the Parliament Square rally. Striking workers and supporters alike have come out in their droves.

The thousands of postal workers striking on Friday are not prepared to accept conditions that will “destroy” the Royal Mail under the banner of modernisation, the boss of the Communication Workers Union has said.

Dave Ward told the PA news agency: “They’re fighting for their jobs, their livelihood, and the service that they provide to the public.

“What we’ve got in this situation is not that we’re fearful of modernisation, but what the company are asking postal workers to agree is that we sack thousands of them whilst at the same time bringing in self-employed drivers, new recruits on less than 20% pay terms and conditions and whilst retaining agency workers.”

He said the company’s demands for workers to start up to three hours later “will destroy the future of Royal Mail”.

The strike is aimed at securing job security for Royal Mail workers, CWU general secretary Dave Ward said.

He told PA it was about “giving job security to postal workers who only 18 months ago were hailed as key workers.

“They kept the country going, they kept the country connected and they delivered and picked up all of the test kits.

“So it’s about keeping postal workers, decent working people, in work and making sure that this company has a successful future and that it doesn’t just get turned into just another parcel courier.”

The chief of the Communication Workers Union said he is “worried” the government is “sitting behind” conditions the company wants to impose on postal workers.

Dave Ward told PA: “We haven’t had any engagement with the government on this. We are worried as to whether or not the government is sitting behind this.

“The proposals that we’re facing are strikingly similar to what the RMT union and railway workers are facing.

“But our focus is on trying to negotiate a settlement with the employer at the moment. We hope the government aren’t interfering in that.”

A postal worker joining thousands at a rally in Parliament Square has accused Royal Mail of “total mismanagement” and said the conditions demanded are “unachievable”.

Gary Wright, who is originally from Manchester but has worked as a mail delivery worker in Bristol for five years, travelled to London on coaches with around 200 colleagues to take part in the action.

He told the PA news agency: “Why we’re here today is because the terms and conditions that they’re wanting to bring in are unachievable. They’re wanting to make it into basically a gig company taking on parcels to match with DPD and the likes of Amazon, but they have not got the infrastructure.

“They’ve made £750 million and then to say ‘now we’re losing a million pounds a day’. Where that’s gone, that’s total mismanagement.”

He said the conditions the employer wants to impose would mean working Sundays for the basic rate and “later starts, later finishes”.

“I have to travel to work and for me to get home it means it might be an extra even two hours on top of normal finish time because there’s traffic and everything.

“We work to live, not live to work.”

“I am in my early 60s. The defining political event of my generation was the Great Miners’ Strike of 1984-5 – the longest, most bitter national strike in British working-class history.

“For over a year, the Thatcher government mobilized the full power of the state to break the strike by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) who were fighting to prevent colliery closures, the destruction of their industry and in defence of their communities.

“It was a dispute which demanded an answer to the question: which side are you on?”

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The Independent’s Mustafa Qadri captures a striking postal worker holding a placard reading ‘Postman Pat deserves better than that’ at today’s Parliament Square rally.

“There are Labour MPs here today because we support the workers fighting back against what is the biggest attack on living standards in living memory. When you look at the Royal Mail workers, the boss Simon Thompson is treating them like they’re dirt”, Richard Burgon MP tells Mustafa Qadri at The Independent.

“Quite rightly, during the worst of the pandemic they were recognised as heroes but now they’re being treated so badly by Simon Thompson and the Royal Mail bosses.

“They’re fighting back today against attacks on terms and conditions, against compulsory redundancies and also to defend Royal Mail. It’s an important British institution, a real public service loved across the country.

“We’re here to support them because they deserve our support.”