Support for striking postal workers

Mick Lynch addresses striking postal workers at Mount Pleasant sorting office in Farringdon

SIGNS reading “I support my postie” were stuck up in windows and doors across the borough as postal workers came out on strike this week.

Both Royal Mail and Post Office workers downed tools on different days in an overlapping push for better wages as the cost of living crisis takes hold.

“With gas bills going up, utility bills going up, the membership across the CWU [Communications Workers Union] are feeling the pinch and they need to be rewarded accordingly,” said Clive Ticker, the the union’s London North chair.

Royal Mail is the company responsible for delivering parcels and letters, while the Post Office is a nationwide network of branches offering postal, governmental and financial services.

Workers from both companies are represented by the CWU. Members were balloted last month, with Post Office workers walking out over the bank holiday weekend.

Royal Mail workers walked out on Friday and Wednesday, with more dates planned for next week.

Workers had been offered an unconditional 2 per cent rise, with an extra 3 per cent increase on offer if workers accept a series of changes, such as carrying out later deliveries and working on Sundays.

Meanwhile, some Post Office workers have staged several strikes since May in a battle for better pay.

Mr Ticker said of the Post Office strikes: “We’ve been offered nothing at all for last year, and we’ve been offered 5 per cent for this year. But obviously with all the prices going up, inflation raging, it’s in effect a pay cut.”

On Friday a rally at Mount Pleasant sorting office in Farringdon saw workers gather on the picket line to hear speeches from Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the RMT, along with Dave Ward, secretary of the CWU.

“Something approaching inflation would be fair and reasonable,” Mr Ticker said of the pay offer.

“The membership of CWU were key workers during the pandemic, and now it’s time to pay us accordingly, rather than reward the fat cats,” he said.

Royal Mail’s chief executive Simon Thompson told BBC News last week that the “Covid bubble has bust” and “our reality today is we are losing £1million a day.”