Britain: Thousands of British postal workers strike over pay differences

More than 115,000 British postal workers are starting four days of strike action today over pay disputes, with the Post Office management saying the action is likely to cause significant disruption to customers.

The Royal Mail strike is part of a series of protests facing Britain as workers demand higher wages in the face of a cost-of-living crisis, as energy bills rise and inflation is forecast to exceed 13% later this year.

“We will be fighting very hard here to secure the pay rise our members deserve,” Dave Ward, the general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, told Sky News.

Royal Mail says it has offered a 5.5% pay rise to workers covered by the CWU, the biggest increase it has made in years.

The union, which says it is the sector’s biggest strike this summer in Britain, disputes this and says the company has given workers a 2% rise and offered another 1.5%, subject to changes to terms. and the conditions.

Royal Mail apologized to its customers for the disruption and noted that it had put contingency plans in place, but added that these cannot fully replace the day-to-day duties of frontline staff.

Royal Mail warned earlier this month that it could post a loss on its UK operations for the 2022-2023 financial year if workers go ahead with strike action. The remaining scheduled worker strikes are on August 31, September 8 and September 9.

Royal Mail chief executive Simon Thomson said the business needed to change working practices as it now delivers more parcels than letters and the parcel delivery market is very competitive.

“Royal Mail is a company that society wants to exist (…) but we need this change so that we can become a parcel business so that we can thrive,” Thomson told Britain’s LBC radio network.

“We want to pay our team more. The bigger the change, the bigger the salary,” he added.

Source: RES-MPE