CWU members braved the continuous pouring rain yesterday morning at the Greenwich, Blackheath and Charlton delivery office London SE10.
CWU General Secretary Dave Ward told them: ‘For Royal Mail Group to reject our offer just hours after receiving it demonstrates that they were never serious about saving Christmas for customers and businesses.
‘When a company openly boasts of having built a £1.7 billion fund to crush its own workers rather than use that money to settle the dispute and restore the service, then you know dark forces are clearly at work.
‘Their sole intention is to destroy the jobs of postal workers and remove their union from the workplace.
‘Our members will not stand for this, and further action will take place in 2023.
‘Our message to the public and businesses is that postal workers do not want to be here, but they are facing an aggressive, reckless and out-of-control CEO committed to wrecking their livelihoods.’
Ward told News Line : ‘We are determined to win this dispute. It is over pay, terms and conditions but also because we don’t accept Royal Mail’s destruction of the great service our members provide.
‘This Tory government is hostile to workers and their interests, so we support all workers who are fighting for wages, conditions and services’
Addressing the pickets he congratulated them on their ‘support and defiance against a hostile Royal Mail leadership.
‘Members have made huge sacrifices knowing it’s not just a question of jobs, but also the service to the public that’s under threat, like the fact that we deliver to 32 million addresses, and the a.m.delivery period. We can’t abandon those.
Support is rock solid across the whole service.
‘There’s been a little bit of softening of the bosses position but that’s only because of the strength of the strikes. We offered to suspend strike action if they made further concessions but they wouldn’t move.’
Matt Wood CWU Rep at Stoke Newington told News Line ‘We’re in a battle to save our jobs, the bosses want to destroy our terms and conditions and create cheap labour but we won’t accept that because we want to save our jobs not just for ourselves but also for the youth so that when they come into the world of work, there’s a job to go into.
‘It’s good that other unions are also taking action the way things are moving, it looks like we’ll see a political movement emerging.’
Striking postal workers on the NW1 Delivery Office in Camden yesterday backed the call for a general strike.
They were in a buoyant mood despite the rain.
Communication Workers Union (CWU) member Jenny Hughes told News Line: ‘We’re striking because Royal Mail want to get rid of our terms and conditions.
‘They want to get rid of staff with compulsory redundancies and fixed term contracts. They want a gig company like the other parcel companies.
‘They’re talking about concentrating on parcels. That will hit the public as well as posties. They want to stop people coming to collect their mail. After three failed deliveries they plan to send the letter back.
‘The Royal Mail boss is not talking to the union.
‘We need all the unions to come out together against this profit system. We want a government for the workers.’
CWU member Stefan Pavett said: ‘More and more people are coming out on strike. Workers are waking up.
‘It’s long overdue. It should have happened years ago. These lords and ladies treat us like dirt. The Royal Mail CEO is worth millions. He’s as rich as Sunak.
‘We definitely need a general strike to bring the Tory government down.
‘We need a shift in the wealth – a workers government that renationalises industry and the banks.
‘All the private companies do is cream off the profits.
‘It’s not just in Britain but in the whole world.’