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Mountains of packages were piled up in cages outside Warrington delivery office as postal workers continue to strike for better pay.
Images and videos shared with The Mirror by the Communication Workers Union this week showed cages full of undelivered post both outside and inside mail centres this week, causing “chaos”.
But Royal Mail said the scenes were “typical for this time of year” and letters were only left outside for short periods of time, just as the delivery trucks were unloaded and cages were ready to be moved indoors.
READ MORE: Royal Mail’s warning to people sending post this Christmas
But a Union source said this was “rubbish”, and that the “chaos” caused by the loss of 115,000 striking posties had led to packages being left “out in the car park because there was no room in the building”.
The source told The Mirror that deliveries were about week behind schedule, adding: “Royal Mail are deluded. In mail centres the Christmas post is normally heavy but we can’t in living memory remember scenes were mail was stored outside like this.”
The images taken in Warrington on Monday showed rows of trolleys packed with post waiting outdoors. Similar images came from Bristol Mail Centre on Wednesday, while pictures from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Northern Ireland all showed indoor mail centres packed with trolleys waiting to be moved.
A CWU spokesman said: “Millions of letters and packages are backlogged across the UK as the Christmas mail mounts up.
“The CWU and postal workers want to save Christmas but Royal Mail must step back from their all out assault on our members jobs, terms and the service they provide.”
Postal workers, who walked out today, Decmeber 9, have planned to strike again on December 11, 14, 15, 23 and 24, with the last first class posting date for Christmas being December 16.
They have opposed Royal Mail’s plans to “enforce massive real-terms pay cuts, force through thousands of compulsory redundancies and enact changes that would see Royal Mail turned into a Uber-style gig economy parcel courier”.
CWU General Secretary Dave Ward said: “Royal Mail bosses are risking a Christmas meltdown because of their stubborn refusal to treat their employees with respect.
“Postal workers want to get on with serving the communities they belong to, delivering Christmas gifts and tackling the backlog from recent weeks. But they know their value, and they will not meekly accept the casualisation of their jobs, the destruction of their conditions and the impoverishment of their families.”
A Royal Mail spokesman said: “We are doing all we can to deliver Christmas for our customers and minimise the impact of damaging industrial action. The CWU is striking at our busiest time, holding Christmas to ransom for our customers, businesses and families across the country. We apologise to our customers and strongly urge them to post early for Christmas.
“The pictures show busy Mail Centres with thousands of parcels moving through our network and this is typical for this time of the year. The sites shown are processing 30,000 parcels an hour so volume moves very quickly through the centres and on to the next stage in their journey.
“We have been doing a good job of quickly recovering from days of industrial action and have well developed contingency plans in place to minimise delays and keep people, businesses and the country connected. However, we cannot fully replace the daily efforts of our frontline workforce on days the CWU are taking strike action.”
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