Huntingdon Royal Mail staff to strike on Friday

UNION workers at the Huntingdon Royal Mail delivery office have threatened to take strike action on Friday morning (August 7).

The Huntingdon employees based in St Peter's Road intend to strike from 6am to 9am in response to Royal Mail's 'draconian and destructive proposals' on business changes.

The Communications Workers Union Eastern Number 5 Branch (CWU) says action is necessary because the changes will put job security at risk, reduce take home pay and increase work load.

They also believe that the alterations will have a long-term impact on the delivery time of mail and quality of service.

Adam Oakes, area delivery representative said: "The CWU is committed to modernising the business while ensuring quality of service is maintained. The CWU understands that changes need to be made in the current climate, but these need to be negotiated with the union."

He added: "The CWU believes that Royal Mail is a vital public service that many small to medium businesses rely on and that Royal Mail approach to ripping out hours and jobs will destroy the mail service to households in this country."

The Royal Mail attacked the union, saying the strike would act to halt the modernisation of the business.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "It is increasingly clear that the CWU refuses to believe that mail volumes are declining despite the clear evidence of this in the UK and in every other postal market around the world.

"We again condemn the CWU for striking locally over much-needed modernisation and change which has already been successfully implemented by our people in the majority of offices around the UK and is working well.

The changes are all covered by the 2007 Agreement on Pay and Modernisation, which the CWU leadership signed in the presence of the TUC but which they are now reneging on in a way that clearly hurts our customers and our people and damages Royal Mail. The union claims to support modernisation, yet acts to destroy it.