News

The CWU and Royal Mail resumed talks, mediated by Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC on Thursday evening (29 October) and continued on Friday in order to reach an agreement.



In the absence of any breakthrough though, strikes took place over the week end.



Billy Hayes, CWU General Secretary, said on the CWU website last Thursday: "Talks will continue between CWU and Royal Mail at the TUC next week (this week). We are very grateful to the TUC for their efforts in helping to try and find a resolution to this dispute.

"We advised Royal Mail and all those in the negotiations last night (Thursday) that the CWU would be serving notice for further strike action today. They agreed to keep talks ongoing in the run-up to that action. The Union is consistently frustrated that Royal Mail keep walking away when we get close to a deal but we hope that that will not be the case next week.

"It is not necessary for this strike to take place and the union remains focussed on reaching an agreement. We hope that Royal Mail will also now be equally focussed.

"CWU is determined to reach an agreement or make enough progress to call off strike action next week (this week)."

CWU will be making no further statement until after talks take place next week (this week).

Further strike action has been set for 121,000 postal workers UK-wide for 24 hours from 3am on Friday 6th November and for 24 hours from 3am Monday 9th November.



As the talks continue, the CWU has also gathered enough evidence about Royal Mail recruiting temporary staff, to bring the case to the High Court either today or tomorrow. A CWU Spokesperson said that "We will be in the high court on either Monday or Tuesday, when we hope to stop Royal Mail recruiting more workers being used to break a legal trade dispute”.



More information here:

http://www.cwu.org/83/news.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/01/post-union-high-court-bid