The Post Offices are to join Royal Mail workers and strike on Monday 4th November, introducing a dilemma for online merchants.
If you thought you could not post Friday and post on Monday to try and beat the backlog it’s not going to happen. Not only will your Friday despatches not be delivered, but the following week you won’t be able to post until Tuesday.
Some Post Offices will remain open – it’s the 372 Crown Post Offices which will close. It will be the thirteenth strike for the Post Office (which is of course a separate company to Royal Mail. However most workers from both the Post Office and Royal Mail are CWU Union members.
Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary, said: “We are coordinating strike action across postal companies for Monday 4 November to increase the impact of the action and try and focus the minds of company negotiators“.
We’d sadly roughly translate that to indicate it’s time to seriously consider using alternative carriers and at least have contingency plans ready as this may just be the first strike of many.
Alternative Options
We know that many sellers will already have emergency courier plans in place, but for those that don’t eBay have negotiated discounts with both myHermes and Collect Plus which may be of interest.
Unlike in the last decade, there are alternatives to Royal Mail. Sure there are compromises, some are slower, some cost more, but a business doesn’t have to be reliant on CWU workers. Sadly the longer they strike the more business will abandon Royal Mail and as has happened in every postal strike some of that business will never return.
10 Responses
So now no posting on Friday or Monday? Tuesday is going to be rough. Going to need a wheel barrow for my franking bags!
Our post office is a franchise owned by the pharmacist in which it resides. The nice ladies there say they’re going to be working as normal.
I doubt this will have any direct impact on ourselves, the small items we do send are generally done through Fedex. I do have sympathy for sellers that use Royal Mail though. Despite Ebay assurances that accounts will be safe its quite possible a few dolphins will be caught in the net.
Post Office Strike should NOT effect you there are 11 000 other offices to use plus as already been stated POL will pull in a load of managers to keep most Crowns open.
But the best bet is find another office that isn’t a Crown which offers Drop & Go, a pleasent smile and efficent service. Keep your business going and help to keep your local office alive, which is an independent business and not CWU run
Does this mean the sorting office won’t be open to drop parcels off?
As we use OBA then just drop them at our local one.
Chris, why do you say you can’t post Friday?
Royal Mail strike action cancelled!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24749336
There is a God! 🙂