Going postal
October 22, 2009
Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) began a 48-hour nationwide strike on Thursday, and are planning another three-day strike next week. The drastic action is the culmination of a long-running dispute over pay, job cuts and modernization plans which the company and ministers say are essential if Royal Mail is to survive.
About 42,000 mail center staff and drivers walked out in the morning and 78,000 delivery and collection staff will strike on Friday. The industrial action is expected to completely disrupt mail deliveries and is being seen as the most serious industrial action in Britain since the miners' strikes of the eighties.
"They are not modernizing the service, they are planning huge cuts," CWU Deputy General Secretary Dave Ward told BBC television. "What we want is an opportunity to resolve this. We don't want to damage customers - we have no alternative."
Strike could inflict permanent damage on Royal Mail
Royal Mail has branded the action "wholly unjustified", warning it would drive customers away from the business at a time when it faces growing competition from the private sector as well as a shortfall in demand as fewer people send letters.
The Labour Party government wants to sell up to 30 percent of the company to make it more competitive, but shelved those plans earlier this year due to adverse market conditions and strong opposition from workers and some Labour politicians.
Royal Mail's business has declined by some 10 percent annually in recent years as customers switch to the internet or more specialized services.
The CWU blamed Royal Mail bosses and Business Secretary Peter Mandelson for the breakdown in talks, saying they were seeking revenge for the staff's opposition to privatization.
Steve Reid of the CWU told the Guardian newspaper, "People are saying we are against modernization as a union but we are not. Sixty thousand jobs have gone from this business in the last five years in agreement with the union. That's not a union against modernization. What we want to do is get Royal Mail fit for the 21st century, but it's got to be through agreement, not dictatorship or imposition."
Accusations instead of negotiations
The postal-workers' strike is the latest in a string of crises that have traumatized Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government. Brown condemned the strike as futile, and would ultimately lead to a further weakening of the company. "This strike will be self defeating if all it means is that less people use the Royal Mail," he said, "It's essential that everybody gets round the table ... as soon as possible."
All sides are mixing accusations with demands to return to negotiations. Mandelson, one of the most influential figures in the government, urged the CWU and Royal Mail to use the conciliation service Acas, "Both sides need to resolve this themselves, they know what the issues are," he said in an interview with Sky News.
CWU general secretary Billy Hayes expressed the union's willingness to go to Acas in a discussion on BBC radio. "I will go to Acas – will you?" Hayes said, addressing Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier.
For its part, Royal Mail insists it is still open to talks. Operations director Paul Tolhurst said the company wanted the union to sign up to agreements apparently reached this week. "We are waiting for a call from the CWU - our phones lines are open, our doors are open," he told BBC radio.
Mandelson warned against politicizing the dispute. "I don't think trading insults in this situation helps resolve the dispute. Politicizing or dramatizing it is useless. People need to focus on what issues are dividing them," he said.
Mandelson believes that if it does not modernize, the company faces "terminal decline". Opposition leader David Cameron of the Conservative party said the government's failure to go ahead with its part-privatisation plans had galvanised union militancy.
The Royal Mail intends to recruit up to 30,000 temporary staff to cope with the strike and the Christmas holiday rush, a move that will almost certainly exacerbate the row.
bk/Reuters/AFP
Editor: Michael Lawton