Postal workers in Bexhill join in national strike

Workers picketed outside the delivery office in Devonshire Road.

Paul Plim, Bexhill's representative for the Communications Workers Union (CWU), he had got widespread support from passing members of the public during Friday's industrial action.

He said workers had been driven to strike because of Royal Mail's refusal to negotiate with the CWU until the last possible moment.

Last Wednesday (October 21) talks between both sides collapsed.

Mr Plim believed the Government's policy was to sway the public's opinion to make them favour privatising the country's postal service.

He said: "There are a certain amount of people being paid a vast amount of overtime because there are six job vacancies in Bexhill that have not been filled for more than a year.

"Royal Mail's policy is not to recruit at the moment so some deliveries are not being made until the late afternoon.

"Post is piling up in the delivery office and not being delivered."

Mr Plim said as of Friday there were two weeks' worth of undelivered parcels and packages in the delivery office.

He said: "We get asked on a daily basis by people waiting for a parcel or letter. They think the delay is because of the industrial disputes but it's not.

"Royal Mail is trying to bring in zero-hour contracts whereby people can be rung on a daily basis to see if they can work. But they would not be given holiday pay, pension entitlements and would be at the manager's beck and call.

"From a quality of services point of view, we are very concerned about people not being fully committed to the job.

"There have been instances of workers on zero-hour contracts being frog-marched off the premises for withholding mail or stealing it."

Royal Mail attacked the CWU's strike ballot as 'totally unjustified'.

The company's managing director Mark Higson said: "The ballot further underlines the CWU's determination to renege on the existing 2007 agreement on Pay and Modernisation which the union's leadership signed in the presence of the TUC.

"The CWU leadership is well aware that it has already agreed all the changes Royal Mail is making and we urge them to recognise the tough economic conditions faced by all our customers and Royal Mail itself and to live up to their claims to support modernisation and to focus, as the company is doing, on delivering the postal service on which so many customers depend."

Royal Mail said deliveries were down by around 10 per cent each year due to increased competition from email and the web.

The firm said with every one per cent decline it was costing Royal Mail around 70 million in lost revenues.

Mr Higson said: "Royal Mail has held around 70 meetings with the CWU in recent months and the door is still open to further talks.

"The company faces an absolute need to change and modernise to improve its efficiency.

"While the amount of delayed mail is a fraction of the daily mailbag we are concerned about every single letter and we apologise wholeheartedly to customers for the difficulties cause by the CWU's strikes."