(qlmbusinessnews.com via news.sky.com- – Mon, 12 Dec, 2016) London, Uk – –
Post Office workers are to stage five days of strikes in the week leading up to Christmas.
The industrial action next week comes amid a dispute with management over job losses, the closure of a final salary pension scheme and branches being shut.
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) said the walkout will include Christmas Eve.
A spokesman defended the decision to strike, saying the union feared the Post Office “as we know it” will cease to exist unless “we stand up now”.
The Post Office claimed if the strike action goes ahead then at least 97% of its 11,600 branches will not be involved and it will be “business as
usual in almost all of our network”.
It said over the last four years it had dramatically cut its losses and modernised almost 7,000 post offices, adding more than 200,000 extra opening hours each week.
Kevin Gilliland, the Post Office's network and sales director, said: “Just today, we agreed with the CWU that we would resume talks, which have been ongoing throughout the summer, on Wednesday.
“We are extremely disappointed that they prefer to resort to calls for strike action and we will be reviewing our position in light of this development.
“Our focus must be on supporting our customers, who rely on us at Christmas more than ever.”
CWU general secretary Dave Ward said: “Our members are being forced into fighting to save their jobs and this great institution from terminal decline.
“We didn't want to be in this position…We are defending the very future of the Post Office in this country.
“We want a Post Office that works for everyone, for communities, for small and medium-sized businesses, and for the people who serve them – our hard-working members.
“But the people running the Post Office have no serious plan other than further closures and managed decline and we won't accept that.”
He added: “We will be making a firm proposal for meaningful talks to establish a vision for the future and, if the company respond to that positively, then this dispute can be avoided.”
CWU assistant secretary Andy Furey said: “All of the blame for this unfortunate turn of events is 100% down to the intransigence of the company.”
He claimed the Post Office had “launched an unprecedented attack on the jobs, job security, and pensions of thousands of hard-working and loyal Post Office workers”.
