🇬🇧 [UK] More Royal Mail Postal Strikes Announced

:uk: Royal Mail recent announcement about further industrial action:

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has called on its members who collect, sort and deliver parcels and letters to take further national strike action on the following dates:

  • Friday 30 September 2022 and Saturday 1 October 2022
  • Thursday 13 October 2022
  • Thursday 20 October 2022
  • Tuesday 25 October 2022
  • Monday 28 November 2022

Further dates have also been announced by the CWU for functional strike action which impacts parts of our operation on the following:

  • Processing, Distribution, International, Collections, Admin: 3, 9, 15, 24 November and 1 December 2022
  • Delivery: 4, 10, 16, 25 November and 2 December 2022
  • Network: 2, 8, 14, 23, 30 November 2022
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Does anyone know if it’s common in other countries for postal services to go on strike?

I would say, the French also like to strike.

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I have not heard about postal strikes here in Russia, although the salaries of postal workers are very low and working conditions are hard. In our situation, it just leads to a lot of turnover. Employees often leave, it is difficult to find new ones in their place, but even those do not stay long in this job.

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We had some strikes in Germany in the past, most notably big ones in 2015.

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any strike for the usps would be considered illegal. there was an 8-day strike in the 70’s, but this only lead to the right to collective bargaining, not the right to strike. also heard that there is a specific clause in the settlement that outright prohibits striking for usps employees. it would be also be unlikely to happen at the union-level as well.

as another user mentioned, this leads to high turnover and offices/distribution centers being chronically short-staffed.

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So cards posted for WPD will be somewhat delayed. Saves me from having to get to the postbox before 7:30 am to not miss the collection (I was hoping for a 1st October cancel)

Honestly, with the cost of living crisis and the way the Tories have gutted public services over the past decade so that they have to run like private businesses, this has been a long time coming

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Our postal workers have regularly gone on strike & in some cases won benefits like maternity leave (in the 1970’s) that became a precedent for the whole country. They have been legislated back to work several times too.

It’s a bit better now, but their employer Canada Post, a crown corporation, has been a very nasty employer for many, many years, so they had very good reasons for striking. In fact one of the former heads of Canada Post took over the Royal Mail in the UK (sorry CWU workers).

Successive gov’ts have also clearly been readying Canada Post for privatization which would be a disaster.

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There was two weeks long strike in Finnish Posti back in 2019.

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Without wishing to sound over political, the absolutely disgusting way Royal Mail was sold off cheap by the Conservatives and LibDem coalition to their cronies, and the worsening (and more expensive, surprise surprise) service we have a result, the posties have my full support :+1:

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Me too! Royal Mail says it’s losing £1m a day when overall it’s making £2m a day. Profits go to the shareholders & owners. Postie’s are treated very badly.

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Today’s CNN article

More than 100,000 UK postal workers begin holiday season strikes

“As many as 115,000 Royal Mail staff went on strike on Thursday to demand better pay and working conditions. It was the first of 19 days of strikes planned to coincide with the peak holiday shopping season, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday.”

Should correspondance with the UK be placed on hold to relieve the postal workload?

Given the news this morning that Royal Mail has also announced they’ll be making 6,000 people redundant (blaming partly on the strike action and partly on financial losses) withholding post would actually worsen their situation and have major long term impacts to their business and the service they provide.

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I agree with what @geo_ said.

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My postie warned me 3 years ago about the direction that Royal Mail intended to take - fewer staff, a reduction in delivery of letters & prioritising parcels. The company has already changed its name (22 July 2022) to International Distributions Services plc to facilitate this. The recent strikes have nothing to do with the job losses announced - they were already in the pipeline, so thus industrial action. Royal Mail are playing a cynical game. It’s a private company only interested in profits for its owners & shareholders.

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No, mail shouldn’t be withheld. Not all those dates are affecting deliveries, some are for sorting etc. Yes things may slow down but our service is still working.

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Post is still arriving fine, no delays in my area except for the actual strike days so as of yet at least there is no major issue with delivery times.

In general I think we need more things going through the postal system here not less.

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Yes, the more mail the better.

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