Royal mail workers to strike for basic employment rights

WORKERS at a Royal Mail subsidiary are to strike for basic employment rights, their union announced yesterday.

The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) said subsidiary eCourier treats staff as “independent contractors” with no rights to minimum wages, holidays, sick pay and other rights.

They will strike on October 10 and 11.

An IWGB spokesman said: “For years, eCourier has been unlawfully classifying pushbike, motorbike and van couriers as independent contractors, denying them their most basic employment rights, including the right to a guaranteed minimum wage and the right to holiday pay.”

IWGB vice-president and eCourier courier Max Dewhurst said: “This has to stop and if managers don’t agree to come to the negotiating table voluntarily, we will be forced to drag them there through industrial action.”

Royal Mail has announced plans to extend its use of subsidiaries. More than 100,000 members of the Communications Workers Union are also voting on strike action.