UK
Thousands of striking Royal Mail workers stage rally near Parliament
Thousands of Royal Mail workers have staged a rally to mark another strike in the increasingly bitter dispute over “unachievable” conditions they said would “destroy” the company.
Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) from across the UK congregated outside Parliament in central London to voice their anger about the proposed changes they believe would turn them into “gig” economy workers.
CWU general secretary Dave Ward told the PA news agency: “They’re fighting for their jobs, their livelihood, and the service that they provide to the public.
“What the company are asking postal workers to agree is that we sack thousands of them whilst at the same time bringing in self-employed drivers, new recruits … and whilst retaining agency workers.”
He said the company’s demands for workers to start up to three hours later “will destroy the future of Royal Mail”.
“We’re not prepared to accept that under the banner of modernisation.”
Mr Ward said the action was aimed at securing job security for postal staff, who were classed as key workers during the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s about keeping postal workers, decent working people, in work and making sure that this company has a successful future and that it doesn’t just get turned into just another parcel courier,” he said.
The union was expecting more than 15,000 members to attend the rally, describing it as the biggest postal workers’ demonstration in living memory.
Parliament Square was a sea of pink high-vis vests, flags and colourful flare
Postal worker Gary Wright travelled from Bristol on coaches with around 200 colleagues to join the action.
He told PA: “Why we’re here today is because the terms and conditions that they’re wanting to bring in are unachievable. They’re wanting to make it into basically a gig company taking on parcels to match with DPD and the likes of Amazon, but they have not got the infrastructure.
“They’ve made £750 million and then to say ‘now we’re losing a million pounds a day’. Where that’s gone, that’s total mismanagement.”
He said the conditions the employer wants to impose would mean working Sundays for the basic rate and “later starts, later finishes”.
“I have to travel to work and for me to get home it means it might be an extra even two hours on top of normal finish time because there’s traffic and everything.
“We work to live, not live to work.”
Picket lines were mounted outside Royal Mail offices across the country.
Strikes are also planned on Sunday and next Wednesday and Thursday.
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “We spent three more days at Acas this week to discuss what needs to happen for the strikes to be lifted.
“In the end, all we received was another request for more pay, without the changes needed to fund the pay offer.
“The CWU know full well that in a business losing more than £1 million a day, we need to agree changes to the way we work so that we can fund the pay offer of up to 9% we have already made.
“While the CWU refuses to accept the need for change, it’s our customers and our people who suffer….
“We are doing everything we can to deliver Christmas for our customers and settle this dispute.”
Rail union boss Mick Lynch calls for urgent meeting with Prime Minister
10 December 2022, 00:04
The RMT general secretary has written to Rishi Sunak saying a meeting between the two men was now the best prospect of making any progress.
The leader of the biggest rail workers union has called for an urgent meeting with the Prime Minister in a bid to help resolve the long-running dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.
Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) are due to stage two 48-hour strikes next week following months of industrial action over the deadlocked row.
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch has written to Rishi Sunak saying a meeting between the two men was now the best prospect of making any progress.
Mr Lynch said that from press reports, Transport Secretary Mark Harper’s appearance at the Transport Committee this week and from what he has been directly told by the Rail Delivery Group’s negotiators, it was clear that No 10 is “directing the mandate for the rail companies and has torpedoed the talks”.
He wrote: “There is no reason why this dispute could not be settled in the same way that RMT has resolved disputes in Scotland and Wales.
“Where the Scottish and Welsh governments have had responsibility for mandates, pay settlements for 2022 have been agreed and neither of these settlements have been conditional on cutting staffing, and eroding safety, security and accessibility.
“It is already a national scandal that your government has been paying the train operating companies not to settle the dispute, indemnifying them to the tune of £300 million so that they have no incentive to reach a resolution.
“It’s not clear to me why, on top of this, your government has now torpedoed the negotiations, but I now believe that a meeting with yourself represents the best prospect of any renewed progress.
“We have a duty to explore every possible option for settling this dispute and I’m willing to do my part. I hope you will agree to meet me.”
A Government spokesperson said: “It’s incredibly disappointing that, despite a new and improved deal offering job security and a fair pay rise, the RMT continues to hold Christmas hostage with more damaging strikes.
“The Government has played its part by facilitating a fair and decent offer and the RMT and its members should vote this deal through and end this harmful disruption.”
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