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Royal Mail has urged postal workers to bring their parents, siblings and friends to work to help break strike action and “save Christmas ”. Royal Mail has asked staff to “bring friends and family to support the operation and deliver Christmas”.
Bosses say the idea is “a really great initiative” and could be “really quick” to save the festive season, reports The Telegraph. But the Communication Workers Union said: “The support for the strike is so strong that they are asking managers to bring in friends and family to clear the backlog.”
They added: “Royal Mail are risking serious security risks by bringing in completely untrained randomers with no experience to plough through your Christmas post. There is a better day of dealing with this backlog: stop the destruction of your workers’ livelihoods, guarantee you’ll treat them with the respect they deserve, and let them get back on with grafting over Christmas.”
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Royal Mail say that friends and family would be paid the same rates as agency staff. Royal Mail said it made a “best and final pay offer”, worth up to 9% over 18 months, about three weeks ago.
The company said it is “doing everything we can to deliver Christmas for our customers”, and thanked an “increasing number of posties returning to work each strike day, temporary workers and managers from across the business who are helping to keep the mail moving”.
Trudi Thomson, who has been working as a postie for 20 years, was one of the posties to strike this week. Trudi said: “We want better terms and conditions and a proper pay offer.” Trudi added to the PA news agency: “Customers rely on us. If our hours are changed and these customers aren’t receiving their mail when they expect us, it’s no good.”
She spoke about the importance of the postie’s role in communities, adding: “I work round the farms, villages that don’t have a shop, so they look forward to you coming. We sometimes take their mail they need to be sent, and they give me eggs from their farms, I have biscuits in my pocket for the dogs who know me, people know us.”
