Postal workers fight back against Royal Mail with strong strike ballot campaign

Postal workers are going all out to win a strike ballot and then resist attacks from their Royal Mail bosses.

Over 100,000 of them in the CWU union are voting in a ballot that closes on 15 October.

They are fighting to defend jobs, pay and the future of the service.

From Haverfordwest to Croydon to Hull to Grampian and Shetland, and many others, postal workers have posted videos and pictures of themselves campaigning and posting their votes.

Hull and east Riding CWU tweeted, “We must surpass the 89 percent Yes vote from our last ballot.

“We don’t take the vote for granted and have to fight for every Yes vote.”

The national union said, “On 7 October we will host the biggest phone-banking session in union history.”

Last weekend as it was revealed that Royal Mail is to recruit a new, additional UK director on a fat salary.

This will be another appointment alongside chief executive Rico Back.

When he arrived in June last year he received a £6 million “golden hello” from bosses and a pay package worth up to £2.7 million a year plus £2 million of shares.

Couriers employed by Royal Mail’s same-day delivery subsidiary eCourier, organised by the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strikes.

They voted over 90 percent Yes for action.

The couriers plan to strike on 10 and 11 October, hitting deliveries to clients such as London NHS hospitals, US-based private healthcare provider HCA and corporate clients Goldman Sachs, Deloitte and British American Tobacco.

The union is now demanding that company classify all its couriers as workers.

It also wants at least the London Living Wage after expenses and that it enter into a collective bargaining agreement with the IWGB.

Reinstate Ian Green

As well as the national ballot, CWU union members at the Glaisdale delivery unit in Nottingham are also voting on action to win back the job of postal worker Ian Green.

He was sacked in August after management accused him of being “aggressive” when he made a complaint about working conditions.

CWU Midlands sub-divisional representative Steve Blower said that Ian Green, who has worked at Royal Mail for 15 years with no disciplinary record whatsoever, had “basically been sacked for complaining to his line manager”.

“The suspicions of the members at Glaisdale are that he has been targeted and singled out by the management because he’s known to be someone who will challenge unfair and wrong actions by management,” said Blower.

The union has also submitted an immediate appeal through the company’s internal procedures, which was heard in September, and the verdict was expected towards the end of this week.