Strikes close Britain at Christmas: Business reveals it has lost £1MILLION amid Royal Mail action

Public support for Mick Lynch’s crippling Christmas strikes is tanking – including amongst his own members who will lose up to £5,000 – as pickets thinned out massively today.

Britain faces another Covid-style lockdown with the festive season now in ruins for the third year running and businesses face losing billions in lost sales, cancellations and delayed deliveries as Royal Mail workers also walked out today.

Millions of workers must now stay at home – some until 2023 –  due to union barons such as £84,000-a-year Mr Lynch shutting down critical services until January 10. Two new polls show that support for rail strikes is dropping – and strong opposition is on the up, according to pollsters Ipsos MORI.

With a cold snap blasting the country, support for RMT union boss Mick Lynch on the picket lines appears to be dwindling, with a poll revealing support for the rail strikes falling by eight points since October. 

On day two of the RMT’s rail strikes, half of Britain’s rail lines are closed all day, as thousands of members at Network Rail and 14 train operating companies walk out in the long-running dispute over pay, jobs and conditions. Many parts of the country will have no services, including most of Scotland and Wales.

Rail staff have been joined in walkouts by Royal Mail workers, and nurses prepare to take unprecedented industrial action, which experts say puts lives at risk amid claims chemotherapy appointments have been axed as 100,000 medical staff stay at home tomorrow.

Support for the ongoing industrial action appears to be dwindling, with a Savanta poll revealing more than half of the public (56 per cent) do not support railway strikes during the festive period, compared to a third who said do.

Public support fell by eight points from +21 in October to just +13 in December, during which time more walkouts were announced.

Union figures obtained by the Telegraph revealing that fewer than 10,000 out of 115,000 workers blocked a 9 per cent pay offer from Network Rail.

Mr Lynch has insisted there is overwhelming support for the industrial action but this could be dwindling. 

The figures show that 9,772 members of the RMT out of the 18,540 who voted opted to reject the 9 per cent pay deal.

Mr Lynch announced a ban on overtime working as part of this winter’s industrial action, and it is understood this led to a backlash from some members as they lost a lucrative option for clawing back earnings lost to strike days.

This means rail workers may miss out on up to £5,000 in earnings. 

Ministers will convene an emergency Cobra meeting for the second time this week over the crisis that will last almost a month. 

Britons had to sacrifice seeing loved ones over the holiday period in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid pandemic – but now face having to do the same due to union barons shutting down critical services until January 10.

Businesses have said the ongoing postal strikes are costing them more than during the pandemic, with one forecasting £1million losses at the height of the festive trading period. 

Thousands of Christmas cards and parcels have began piling up as Royal Mail workers prepare to mount picket lines outside sorting and delivery offices. 

Two further Royal Mail walkouts are planned for December 23 and December 24, in an increasing bitter dispute over pay, jobs and conditions. 

Royal Mail has brought forward the final posting dates for Christmas cards because of the industrial action. 

The wave of strikes billed the ‘December of discontent’ is bringing untold misery on hard-working Britons in the run-up to Christmas.

Business owners say that their festive trading period – one of the busiest throughout the year – is being hit hard by disruption to critical services.

Pip Heywood, managing director at Thortful, said that postal strikes are costing them between £30,000 to £50,000 per day.

The online greeting card marketplace is heavily reliant on Royal Mail, with around 80 per cent of its products being sent out via the postal service.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Ms Heywood said: ‘Each day of the strike is costing Thortful between 30-50k per day, and Christmas trading has been hugely hit.

‘We can see dramatic drops in trade on the days where we’ve had to advise customers of the extended delivery windows, we’ve seen Thortful customer inquiries triple.

‘Luckily our customers know how reliable we usually are but delivery reliability is so much worse than even during Covid now.

‘It means we’ve had to staff up to protect our customers so its not just hitting revenue, its adding cost and also causing brand damage.’

She added: ‘We’re estimating [the strikes] will cost Thortful in the region of £1 million.’ 

Meanwhile, Sheffield-based business owner Gaynor Lockwood Edwards said ‘things are incredibly bleak at the moment’.

Ms Lockwood Edwards, who owns Quirky Cactus which sells handmade crotchet gifts, said she was concerned her business would not survive the winter due to rising costs and stunted sales due to industrial action.

Business owner Ann Edwards, 60, from London, said she was planning to travel to Exeter to bring in the New Year with family for the first time since the pandemic.

She paid £70 for a return ticket from Clapham Junction to Exeter St Davids, but is worried she is ‘going to get stuck’ because of the knock-on effect rail disruption will have on non-strike days.

Ms Ewards said: ‘We are all now entering the Dark Ages, we’re just sleepwalking into it.

‘You can’t be ill because the poor old nurses are on strike, you can’t travel anywhere because trains and Border Force staff are on strike.

‘We’re going back to how it was for my grandparents in the 1930s.

‘The liberties we’ve taken for granted are being slowly, slowly taken away.’

Her Mame Huku business which sells Japanese kimonos and bags has seen a drop in orders this December compared to previous years, which she puts down to the uncertainty caused by Royal Mail strikes.

She continued: ‘The trusty postie is no longer trusty. You can’t ship things to people with it being 50/50 whether it’s going to get there or not.

‘It is soul destroying.

‘People buy from Amazon and places where it’s guaranteed to get there but small retailers have nowhere to go.’

‘Sales this December compared to last are down 64 per cent,’ she said.

‘Online sales have been few and far between due to the cost-of-living crisis and postal strikes, which are putting even more pressure on businesses like mine.

‘The postal strikes are the last thing small businesses need.’

She added: ‘I have recently applied for an overdraft and started to use a credit card in anticipation of a really terrible January.’

It comes as photographs emerged showing thousands of Christmas cards and parcels piling up outside of Royal Mail centres as industrial action threatens Christmas postal dates. 

There are reports that undelivered parcels left outside the Royal Mail’s depot in Bristol have attracted rats and foxes, who are chewing through the piles left outside in the elements.

A union member at the site told The Telegraph: ‘The packages have now attracted rats and other animals, including a fox.’

Another local CWU official told the publication: ‘Things are being left out in the open at Bristol Mail Centre and I believe it’s the case that vermin and other animals are having a go.’

It comes as thousands of members at Network Rail and 14 train operating companies walked out for a second day in the long-running dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.

The walkouts have taken a sledgehammer to the economy with usually packed city centres deserted during the festive period.  

Pubs, bars and restaurants were dealt another blow in lost earnings, and millions of people forced to work from home.

The strike – part of a string scheduled over the Christmas period, including this week and Christmas Eve, one of the busiest travel days in the calendar – cleared busy high streets of shoppers and workers yesterday in cities including London, Manchester and Leeds.

Hospitality chiefs warned that the industry expects to lose £1.5billion in sales as festive parties are cancelled.

Royal Mail has been contacted for a comment.