Members of the CWU, the union for Royal Mail Group workers, will take strike action today and tomorrow (1 October), and this will be followed by 19 further days of strike action in the build-up to Christmas, the dates of which have now been disclosed.
The CWU’s members who collect, sort, and deliver parcels and letters have been called to take further national strike action on 13, 20, and 25 October, as well as 28 November.
Further dates have also been announced by the CWU for functional strike action which impacts parts of Royal Mail’s operation on the following dates: Processing, Distribution, International, Collections, and Admin on 3, 9, 15, and 24 November as well as 1 December; Delivery on 4, 10, 16, and 25 November as well as 2 December; and Network on 2, 8, 14, 23 and 30 November.
Today's strike, which is related to pay and conditions, follows drastic action taken by Royal Mail last week to break the impasse over ongoing industrial action by involving ACAS. It had also told CWU that it planned to serve notice on a number of historic agreements – a move the union described as “sickening”.
CWU general secretary Dave Ward said today: “Postal workers in this country will not meekly accept having their lives being made worse for the benefit of a wealthy few.
“We are seeing a national outpouring of anger from workers who are sick to the back teeth of an incompetent business elite who want to destroy a great institution, worsen working conditions and damage the communities our members serve.
“Workers will never accept the Uberisation of Royal Mail – nor will the public, who have backed us in unprecedented numbers in the past few months.
“Postal workers are not going to swerve in our determination, which is something that Royal Mail have got to realise.
“Royal Mail bosses have lost the dressing room, and unless they make efforts to get real on negotiating with workers representatives, serious disruption will continue.
“In the meantime, we urge every member of the public to stand by their postie.”
In an update on its website regarding the strike dates, Royal Mail stated: “We’re sorry this strike action is likely to cause you some disruption. We will be working to get our services back to normal as quickly as possible.
“Royal Mail has well-developed contingency plans, but we cannot fully replace the daily efforts of our frontline workforce.
“We’ll be doing what we can to keep services running, but you should expect significant disruption on dates when strike action is taking place.”
The postal operator said that on days when strike action is taking place, it will deliver as many Special Delivery and Tracked24 parcels as possible, and will prioritise the delivery of Covid test kits and medical prescriptions wherever possible. It will not be delivering letters, with the exception of Special Delivery.
