News

Thousands of postal workers are striking across the United Kingdom 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.



For more information on the strikes see the CWU web page at;



http://www.cwu.org/news/archive/strikes-on-as-postal-workers-overworked-by-management-rigged-systems.html