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Photos taken 17 hours apart show heaps of post left outside a Bristol Royal Mail centre, as national strikes continue. The undelivered post was pictured on Monday and again on Tuesday (December 13) ahead of another strike day today.
Some of the containers pictured at 7pm on Monday were photographed in the same spot on Tuesday at midday. A total of 10 days of strike action has been planned by the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU), with more than 115,000 members walking out in the run up to Christmas.
Bristol Live reported earlier this week of post piling up at the Royal Mail site in Filton, with a worker of long service claiming they had never seen a backlog of deliveries like it. However, Royal Mail says the scenes are “typical for this time of year”.
READ MORE: Royal Mail last Christmas post dates 2022 and when to avoid Post Office
Six days of strikes have already taken place with more action today (Wednesday, December 14), Thursday (December 15), Friday (December 23) and Saturday (December 24). The CWU has said recent scenes at mail centres are ‘highly unusual’ and ‘chaotic’.
(Image: SWNS)
(Image: Tom Wren SWNS)
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.”
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “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 last first class posting date for Christmas has been brought forward to December 16. The CWU has rejected a pay offer of 7 per cent plus a £500 lump sum, as they claim Royal Mail wants to cut jobs as part of this pact.
Royal Mail is currently losing over £1m per day, and says the potential pay offer is being eaten away by the costs of CWU strikes. The Royal Mail spokesperson added: “We are doing all we can to deliver Christmas for our customers and minimise the impact of damaging industrial action.
“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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