Striking postal workers in Inverness losing faith in the union

Royal Mail workers in Inverness appear to be giving up hope that the current dispute over pay will ever be concluded.

Workers say they have been holding strike action since a ballot in August, yet no headway has been made in reaching a settlement.

With Christmas fast approaching, the busiest time of the year for Royal Mail, workers say they don’t believe the settlement is on the cards anytime soon – and want to make a deal and bring the matter to an end.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) rejected a pay offer in October.

Royal Mail said the offer was worth 9%, including a 7% salary increase over two years, plus a lump sum payment of 2% this year.

Royal Mail have declared war on your postie. #StandByYourPost pic.twitter.com/MVGLM4Abxt

— The CWU (@CWUnews) October 31, 2022

One Inverness worker, who did not want to be named, said: “Half of Royal Mail staff in the north and north-east are wanting these strikes to be over.

“The union has kept pushing forward on strike days when they’re not even talking to staff. The union needs to approach workers – and ask them again what they want now.”

Loosing faith in the unions

The worker said he had spoken to other union members across the north and north-east who all felt the same.

He continued: “These strikes have been going on for months, they happened because Royal Mail workers first lost faith in the bosses, now Royal Mail workers are losing faith in the union.

“CWU union people speak to the staff, if you’re lucky, once every three weeks.

“The union don’t care themselves anymore, they are loving the publicity the CWU is getting. But what about the normal postal workers? There is no more communication with the union.

“Staff have meetings two or three times a week with management about the strikes.

“Staff are burned out and it is affecting physical health, but especially mental health. There is no welcoming atmosphere anymore, everybody looks like they dread coming to work.”

He added: “No, it’s been going on for long enough. I am sick of strike days. I want to work but if I came in to work on a strike day, I’d be doing the workload of three people sometimes.

“Some staff obviously won’t turn up to work on strike days because they’re scared of backlash from other union members who may be involved in picket lines, but they want to do it.”

CWU asked for more pay

A Royal Mail spokesman stressed the firm was doing all it can to deliver Christmas for customers and staff by settling the dispute.

said: “We spent three more days at Acas this week to discuss what needs to happen for the strikes to be lifted.

“In the end, all we received was another request for more pay, without the changes needed to fund the pay offer.

“The CWU knows full well that in a business losing more than £1 million a day, we need to agree changes to the way we work so that we can fund the pay offer of up to 9% we have already made.

“While the CWU refuses to accept the need for change, it’s our customers and our people who suffer. Strike action has already cost our people £1,200 each. The money allocated to the pay deal risks being eaten away by the costs of further strike action.

“During the last strike days, we delivered more than 700,000 parcels, and more than 11,000 delivery and processing staff returned to work. We recovered our service quickly, but the task becomes more challenging as Christmas nears.

CWU did not respond to requests to comment.