Thousands of Post Office staff will strike on Easter Saturday in a dispute over closures, jobs and pay. The Communication Workers Union served notice to Post Office Ltd late on Thursday of the intention to strike. It follows an 88% vote in favour of strike action and a refusal from the Post Office to negotiate.
4,000 Post Office staff working in the network of 373 Crown offices, which handle 20% of all Post Office business, will strike on Easter Saturday.
The Communication Workers Union say that the strike is “in opposition to Post Office plans to close or franchise 76 Crown offices, to protect jobs and services, and secure a fair pay rise for staff who have had no rise since April 2011“.
In response The Post Office said they are “very disappointed that the Communication Workers Union (CWU) had decided to call strike action” and condemned the CWU’s refusal to understand the requirement for critical change across the Crown Post Office network which is currently losing £40m per year.
Crown branches make up three per cent of the 11,800 Post Office network. The remainder of the network will not be part of any strike action. Contingency plans are in place to ensure that any disruption to customers is kept to a minimum. If your Post Office is closed due to strike action hopefully another nearby will still be open.
9 Responses
Saturday being the final day of cheap post couldn’t be timed better.
Just been advised by post office that new orange “signed for” labels don’t scan into the new RM systems!
Post office can scan them but not the the hand held Royal Mail scanners.
Advice is don’t use them just yet. They should be OK on Tuesday but who knows?
Support your friends who work for the PO…
Don’t cross the picket line this Saturday – Join them in action…
A refusal to negotiate is a snub to a career of hard-work…
Please support your friends who work for our Post Office
Crown Post Offices do not have a proud reputation for being helpful. Indeed most have the reputation for being as unhelpful as possible all of the time. In addition often you go in during the lunch period to find only one or two windows open because the staff have little or no interest in serving their public. Another favourite trick is to close the window while there is a long queue waiting without warning. So when the Crown Post Offices are under threat the staff cannot really expect the General Public to go out of their way to support them.
Go to the Sub Post Offices. The one that I use. The Staff are always helpful and no matter how busy they are they always work with a smile on their faces and will answer any query, no matter how stupid, sensibly and helpfully. So if that Sub Post Office was under threat I know that I would be very happy to do whatever I could to support them.
When ever Trade Unionist come out on strike they may feel that they are attacking the “bosses”. But in reality they are attacking their customers. These are the people who really pay the Trade unionists wages.
So they “withdraw their Labour” and the passenger waiting for the bus to get to work, or the person waiting for their morning paper, or waiting to post a letter or whatever finds that they have no service that day. So what do they do?
I know what I do. I look for somebody who is willing to provide the service that I want. Looking at the statistics over many decades that is what the General Public have done. So if the Bus Company is out on strike the passenger either looks for some other provider such as another Bus Company or perhaps the Train or more usually they go out and buy a Car.
As ebay sellers we could of course tell our customers that we cannot post out their goods today because we are showing solidarity with the Crown Post Office Workers who are out on strike. Or we could take our parcels to the Sub Post Office a mile down the road.
Now lets imagine that we have told our customers about our solidarity with the Trades Unionists. Some might be happy to deal with you as they too are Trade Unionists. But far more likely they will think that you are completely off your trolley. It may very well be the last time that you see them as customers.
Now to my situation as a Candidate. In fact I have been Re-Elected Unapposed. So I do not have to go through an Election. So perhaps my Voters are happy with me as their Councillor. I hope that this is the situation. However I had calculated 4 candidates for a 2 Member Ward. In the event there was only one nomination…me. So I am a Councillor for another few years. Within my community I hope I always show respect and regard for everybody within that community. However there are often occassions when I have to listen to both sides of an arguement and then come down on one side or the other. However I like to think that I always do it fairly and not just support The Trades Unionists whether they are in the right or the wrong. So I will not have to wear a rosette of any colour for another few years.