Post Office workers are to strike across London for 24-hours in a dispute about working practices.
Up to 10,000 postal staff involved in deliveries, collections and sorting across the capital will walk out on Friday. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) said that more industrial action would follow unless the Royal Mail changed its approach to reforming the service.
Dave Ward, deputy general secretary of the CWU, said: “Royal Mail is blocking modernisation by refusing to negotiate change with the CWU.
“There is growing unrest across the country as Royal Mail tries to impose damaging cuts and changes without the input of union reps. The future of the business must be safeguarded through careful planning, not shooting from the hip.”
The Government has tried to cut costs and reform the loss-making service. Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, proposed part-privatising Royal Mail, although it is now widely expected that the plans will be watered down on put on hold amid fierce opposition from within the Labour Party.
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The Conservatives claimed yesterday that the Government’s willingness to reform the service has waivered after a former CWU leader was appointed to oversee the Royal Mail in the latest reshuffle.
Lord Young of Norwood Green, who was appointed to the Business Department with responsibility for postal affairs, was deputy general secretary of the CWU from 1998 to 2002. The union has threatened to disaffiliate from the Labour Party if the privatisation proposals are implemented and called Lord Mandelson’s policies “foolish and dumb-headed”.
Today the CWU announced that its members would hold a one-day strike against other reforms already in progress.
A deal had been agreed after a national strike in 2007 on negotiating improvements in efficiency and modernisation, which the union said had ensured that the Royal Mail had built steady profits.
Mr Ward accused the company of “ignoring” an agreement to modernise the business and was implementing arbitrary cuts in costs.
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“Royal Mail can avert this strike action by pulling back from arbitrary cuts and negotiating modernisation with the CWU.”
The union has offered a three-month moratorium on industrial action in a bid to reach an agreement with the Royal Mail on modernising the business.
A Royal Mail spokesman said: “The CWU’s threat to customers of damaging strike action in London is completely at odds with its repeated claim to support modernisation and to introduce new ways of working throughout the business.
“A strike will not modernise Royal Mail - it will simply disrupt the service to which customers are entitled, lead to an even greater loss of business and leave Royal Mail far less able to protect full time jobs.
“As mail volumes fall we need to make changes and become more efficient right across the UK. Productivity in Royal Mail offices in London already lags behind the rest of the UK with the productivity in parts of London now up to 35% below the best region and around 10% worse than the UK average.
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“The proposed revisions in London ask no more of employees than in the rest of the UK and we are only putting in place changes that result directly from the changes to the amount and type of mail we are now carrying and which are already agreed with the CWU as part of the 2007 deal.”