Yes Vote Shows Royal Mail is Failing
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 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."
-Ends-
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.
For more information please contact:
Sian Jones, Press Officer, Tel:
020 8971 7267, Mobile: 0779 3314249,
E-mail: sbjones@cwu.org
Kevin Slocombe, Head of Communications,
Mobile: 07714504413, E-mail: kslocombe@cwu.org
www.cwu.org
www.cwutv.org
