Monday, June 25, 2007

Royal Mail Preparing for Lock-outs ??




Royal Mail will permanently close sorting offices and delivery centres if industrial action, due to start on Friday, begins to bite, sources close to the company told Financial Mail.

And the company has drawn up plans to isolate pockets of militancy by relocating sorting work in London from offices where there are strikes to those unaffected by the action.


With more than 5,000 executives [and reportedly many of the 20,000 non-union members -aj ] working in depots, disruption is expected to be kept to a minimum... the longer the dispute lasts, the less will be the impact...Royal Mail is confident it will have the full support of the Government, which so far has decided to leave the handling of the dispute to the company.


The Observer reports Royal Mail executives are preparing for months of strikes .A Royal Mail source said: "It will go on for months and then people will realise it is serious. What happens is the turnout for the first strike will be high but by the time you get to the fourth it will fall. We don't mind having three to six months of disruption "


3 comments:

Duncan said...

the company has drawn up plans to isolate pockets of militancy by relocating sorting work in London from offices where there are strikes to those unaffected by the action.

That will see the sorting office in Oxford gone then.

I'm back in Cumbria now anyway and on Friday we'll be picketing alongside postal workers. Good luck in Edinburgh, and hopefully we'll be solid in West Cumbria.

ajohnstone said...

As for the threat of closing offices , everything is still at the chest-thumping and sabre -rattling stages at the moment .We shall see what really happens . But at the shop-floor level there is increasing concern that Royal Mail mandarins are intent on totally wrecking the business - management industrial sabotage , to achieve 100% privatisation . I don't mean the monkeys of line-managers but the actual organ-grinders themselves having this strategy.

Thanks for your support , Duncan . But to be blunt and talking from a long history of personal experience , the presence of political party members on picket lines (rather than fellow trade unionists with their banners ) has always brought suspicion .

Rather you just brought a case of beer and sandwiches and flasks of hot drinks as sign of practical solidarity which will be more appreciated and offer more chance of engaging in honest dialogue .

(Too many times the idea of intervention in a union fight is the SWP trying to flog the latest Socialist Worker telling the picket line what political line should be taken and which of their pet union official should get on to the NEC or whatever )

Duncan said...

Haha don't worry we're not that well organised. It'll be me and a few mates, and I'll be the only party member.

We're contacting the local CWU and RMT branches, because they're probably out next Friday, to see if they need money and if so we'll maybe have a whip-round in our local.