POSTAL workers have launched three days of strike action in a row over jobs, pay and cuts.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) is accusing Royal Mail of reducing the pay of employees and implementing other cuts which it said was affecting services.

Management accused of being block to modernisation

Deputy general secretary Dave Ward said the company had failed to take up an offer of a three-month moratorium on industrial action so talks on modernisation could be held.

He said: “It's now clear that Royal Mail management is the biggest block to modernisation.

“When presented with the best deal we - or any other union - can offer, which is for three months of no industrial action and focused negotiation on modernisation, they refuse.

"The problems that Royal Mail face are not going away.

"The pension deficit in particular needs to be resolved along with the increasingly important outstanding issues of modernisation.

"The government is allowing the same management that was criticised for failure to continue mis-managing the company.

"Strike action in London is in response to Royal Mail's continuing executive action of cuts without modernisation.

"There's no machinery, no redesigning of deliveries and no improvement on industrial relations.

National strike planned

"The company has abandoned the final phase of the 2007 Pay and Modernisation agreement and is set on piling more work and pressure on already stretched staff.”

"The union is also planning a national day of action on July 17 which will combine industrial action and demonstrations."

Union accused of being block to modernisation

But Royal Mail says it is the union which is the block to modernisation.

A spokesman said: "CWU’s claim to have offered a "moratorium" on industrial action is misleading nonsense.

“It is nothing more than an attempt, backed by the threat of escalating strike action, to halt the modernisation process which is crucial to the company’s future survival.

“Any moratorium on further change at Royal Mail - at a time when we urgently need to accelerate the pace of change in the face of an annual 10 per cent decline in UK mail volumes - is simply impossible.

“The fact is that change must happen now - not after a "moratorium" of several months - when 20 per cent fewer items are being delivered in central London each day compared to two years ago, and efficiency lags behind the rest of the UK, with productivity in some parts of the capital around 35 per cent below the best UK units.

"Royal Mail again urges the union to call off the strikes and to rejoin the dialogue to which both the union and Royal Mail signed up as part of the 2007 agreement."

Go to royalmail.com/serviceupdates for advice about this week’s services.