Royal Mail has issued a two-day warning to customers ahead of their upcoming Christmas strikes.
Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) will be walking out on Friday 23 December and Saturday 24 December after their union said the postal service had turned down an offer of negotiations to resolve a dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.
It's the latest in a string of industrial action, including from rail workers, nurses, paramedics and border force officers. Royal Mail has issued a warning ahead of the two-day strike.
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It said that Customer Service Points will be closed on both strike days for collecting or dropping off items. But customers who have received a ‘Something for you’ card and need their item before Christmas have been advised to visit their nearest Customer Service Point before Friday 23 December.
The Royal Mail website states: "Please only visit the Customer Service Point if you have received a ‘Something for you’ card, advising we're holding an item there for you." It continues: "Royal Mail has well-developed contingency plans, but we cannot fully replace the daily efforts of our frontline workforce.
"We’ll be doing what we can to keep services running, but we are sorry this planned strike action is likely to cause you some disruption." To find the opening times of your nearest Post Office, check out Services Near You.
CWU general secretary Dave Ward said further strike action will take place in the new year. He said: “For Royal Mail Group to reject our offer just hours after receiving it demonstrates that they were never serious about saving Christmas for customers and businesses. When a company openly boasts of having built a £1.7 billion fund to crush its own workers rather than use that money to settle the dispute and restore the service, then you know dark forces are clearly at work.
“Their sole intention is to destroy the jobs of postal workers and remove their union from the workplace. Our members will not stand for this, and further action will take place in 2023. Our message to the public and businesses is that postal workers do not want to be here, but they are facing an aggressive, reckless and out-of-control chief executive committed to wrecking their livelihoods.”
A Royal Mail spokesman said: “Throughout December, we have urged the CWU to call off their strike action and work together to deliver Christmas for our customers. The CWU have consistently refused our offer to do so, choosing instead to repackage old pay offers, absent of the change needed to fund the pay deal, in the misleading guise of new proposals to resolve the pay and change dispute.
“Our priority is to deliver for our customers, and this has never been more important as we approach Christmas. We would like to thank the increasing number of posties returning to work each strike day.
"They have been joined by thousands of employees from across the business who have swapped their regular day jobs to work in the operation as we focus all our efforts on delivering Christmas for our customers.”
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