Post Office strike – three new days of action announced for August
Postal, Post Office (PO) August 12 2022
Everybody out Friday 26th, Crown Office staff walk again on 27th, Supply Chain & Admin resume their action on 30th as pay fight escalates…
Post Office workers will take their fourth round of industrial action at the end of this month, with a strike that coincides with the first walkout of the CWU’s Royal Mail members on Friday 26th August.
Some 2,000 Crown Office, Supply Chain and Admin grades workers will stop work for the day, as around 115,000 postmen and women from all parts of the UK begin their action – both strikes in pursuit of a fair pay rise for hard-working and dedicated staff.
“We’re as determined as we have ever been to keep fighting and win a settlement that will protect our members’ standard of living through these exceptionally difficult economic times,” said CWU assistant secretary Andy Furey, as he announced the latest dates today.
The Post Office reported a £35 million profit in 2020/21 and a £39m profit in 2021/22. But yet CWU grades employees were given no pay rise at all for 2021/22 and just a 3 per cent pay offer for 2022/23.
“At a time when inflation is almost 12 per cent, a pay deal worth just 3 per cent over two years is incredibly insulting – it’s actually a huge pay cut in real terms,” Andy points out, adding: “Our members cannot and will not accept this massive lowering of their living standards – and their anger and determination have become stronger and stronger as this dispute has worn on.
“Although ours is a separate trade dispute to that of our Royal Mail colleagues – and our BT Openreach fellow members – the issues at stake here are all remarkably similar. A profitable company, a workforce who performed exceptionally during the pandemic – as key workers, continuing to attend work throughout – and an arrogant and uncaring senior management who seem dead set on attacking, impoverishing and humiliating its own employees.
“And just like our fellow members in those other, larger companies, our Post Office members will stand and fight, fight and fight again until justice is served.”
After the ‘everyone-out’ day of Friday 26th, members in different Post Office functions will then hold further, separate 24-hour walkouts – Crown Office staff continue their action the next day, Saturday 27th, and their Supply Chain and Admin colleagues return to their picket lines after the Summer Bank Holiday, on Tuesday 30th.
“It’ll be great to be striking on the same day as our fellow CWU members in other companies,” Andy continued, “and there’ll be a lot of mutual solidarity and support, not only right across our own union, but also towards our sisters and brothers in the rail unions. It sometimes seems as if the bigger employers in the UK have all got together and declared an economic war on the UK working class.
“Some of the breathtaking arrogance from some of these largest employers is almost reminiscent of the Victorian era, back when the aristocracy looked down their collective noses at ‘the peasants’ way below them – well the CWU and other trade unions have got a message for them, those days are long gone and they’re not coming back.”