Thousands of postal workers are striking across the country today (Wednesday) as Royal Mail continues to disregard the concerns of CWU over cuts to jobs and services and a lack of willingness to negotiate on modernisation. The CWU has today accused Royal Mail of abusing work measurement systems to increase workloads to breaking point.
Dave Ward, Communication Workers Union deputy general secretary, said: “Postal workers are more productive than ever handling more mail with a diminishing workforce. Stress is now reaching breaking point while morale is at an all-time low.
“The company is rigging the work measurement systems to overload postal workers. Budgets are cut year on year and delivery rounds are then overloaded to match that budget. These systems were introduced to accurately determine workloads but Royal Mail are rigging the systems to ensure they meet their panic-driven cost cuts.
“The company knows the workload is unacceptable but are bullying people to attempt to tackle impossible workloads” he added.
The strikes have developed over Royal Mail’s attempts to impose budget cuts, reducing jobs and services. The CWU continues to call for meaningful negotiations on modernisation, as previously agreed in 2007. Only this week, as a result of the strikes to date, has Royal Mail finally offered the union talks.
Dave Ward said: “The offer of talks is welcomed, but the company has to have real dialogue. To this point, all they do is lecture us on their plans. In the meantime they continue to impose cuts and unacceptable workloads and so the strikes will continue. We repeat our offer of a no strike deal if the company takes a step back on this round of cuts and negotiates on the bigger picture of the much needed modernisation of the company. In 2007, both parties agreed to negotiate on all aspects of modernisation and Royal Mail must return to that approach.”
The CWU has repeatedly expressed serious concerns over the appalling way that postal workers are being treated by Royal Mail. “The bullying, managerial culture in the company is now reaching very dangerous proportions and we fear for the wellbeing and safety of our members. Examples of this are increasing numbers of employees facing unfair conduct action when they simply cannot complete the work tasks demanded by managers, within the allocated working time,” added Mr Ward.
The CWU has uncovered lots of examples where workers are increasingly harassed when they are genuinely ill and of managers dismissing employees for issues that would only trigger informal counselling in most other companies. There is also the deliberate tactic of taking people off of pay if they dare question management on legitimate work related issues.
Dave Ward said: “The simple way to resolve these issues and bring an end to strike action is for Royal Mail to agree to negotiations which agree an approach to modernisation taking into account job security fears and stop the unagreed imposed cuts.”
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