CWU vote to take strike action

The Communication Workers Union today (Thursday) can report a yes vote in the national ballot for strike action in Royal Mail. Postal workers voted by 76 per cent in favour in favour of strike action.

Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary, said: “This is a huge vote of no confidence in Royal Mail management. The company has tried to make out that problems only exist in some local offices, but postal workers across the UK have now spoken and they say no to Royal Mail’s arrogance.

“Royal Mail has never really been engaged in modernisation. They’ve been running down the business, running down services and cutting costs and it’s that business plan that postal workers have overwhelmingly rejected today.

“There’s still an opportunity to reach an agreement before any national strike action takes place.

“We need a national agreement which secures a fair deal on modernisation and reward for the efforts of postal workers in transforming the business. We want reassurances on job security, covering both redundancies and full-time part-time ratios.

“Crucial to an agreement is fair workloads with agreed standards of measurement. Constantly disciplining postal workers will not improve efficiencies but will drive an ever bigger wedge between workers and what they are told is modernisation.

“We’ve seen cuts and increased workloads and now we need an agreed roll-out of real modernisation. Aligning the interests of customers, employees and the company as a whole is a pre-requisite for the successful modernisation of Royal Mail.

“The Government must act now to resolve the pensions deficit which is crippling the Royal Mail’s finances and chances to modernise effectively.”

Notes to editors:


• 121,000 postal workers were sent ballot papers from 17th September 2009. The ballot closed on 8th October 2009.

• Postal workers outside of London start on £16,268

• The last national post strike was in 2007.

• Local strikes have been ongoing in places across the UK since the last week of June. Postal workers in London have now taken strike action every week for 15 weeks.

• The turnout was 67 per cent.