Walkout as Royal Mail plans job cuts | Business

The first of 19 days of national postal strikes in the run-up to Christmas took place yesterday amid a bitter attack on the “incompetent” management of Royal Mail after it emerged that the privatised delivery service is contemplating the first round of sackings in the dispute.

The 115,000 staff represented by the Communication Workers Union and the leadership of Royal Mail — headed by Keith Williams, its chairman and a former British Airways boss, and Simon Thompson, the chief executive — have become increasingly entrenched in a dispute over pay and changing working patterns.

Before the latest round of strikes, Royal Mail bosses had given the union a “final warning” that there would be job cuts unless workers’ leaders agreed to meet and negotiate at