More than 100 Royal Mail staff in Scotland took wildcat strike action over changes to working hours yesterday as the bitter postal dispute turned into what one senior union official described as "a war".
As the Prime Minister urged postal workers to go back to work, staff, including more than 100 members of the Communication Workers' Union (CWU) in the Victoria Road sorting office in Glasgow, took unofficial action in protest at a change to hours.
Senior CWU officials in Scotland later said that three full-time and three part-time area representatives covering Glasgow who helped negotiate a return to working were told by management to go back to normal working in delivery offices for three months, effectively ceasing most of their industrial relations work.
The Royal Mail normally agrees to release the six reps from their normal duties to fulfil industrial relations and other union work.
The union said the sanctions were imposed because management felt the officials either encouraged or allowed unofficial industrial action to take place.
However, the Royal Mail in Scotland last night denied this, saying only one worker was sanctioned for failing to get an organised return to work and "lost control of the situation".
John Brown, the CWU's Scottish regional secretary described the management's action as "vindictive".
Some 131 workers in Glasgow joined 1000 in east London and 500 in Liverpool as staff in 24 of 1400 delivery offices nationwide refused to work.
Workers were told to start at 6am, instead of their usual times, generally up to an hour earlier, a request which union leaders said was imposing changes to hours that had not been agreed in recent negotiations. The Glasgow workers were among the first to return to normal duties.
Jim McKechnie, full-time local branch organiser of the CWU in Glasgow, said that with the help of area union representatives he asked staff to return to work after a few hours, fearing the action would jeopardise national talks.
But he was shocked by what he described as management's "disciplinary action" against himself and the reps.
"This has turned into a war instead of a dispute," he said. "All we want to do is to get this resolved and get the business back to what it should be, the best postal service in the world."
The CWU said it was not supporting the unofficial strikes but accused Royal Mail managers of "provoking" employees with sudden changes to work patterns.
Royal Mail called the unofficial action "unacceptable" and claimed it gave the workers four weeks' notice of the move. Up to 130,000 members of the CWU, including around 10,000 in Scotland, were due to return to work yesterday morning at the end of a second 48-hour stoppage which has crippled services for almost a week.
Disruption to services is expected to continue throughout next week as union staff engage in a previously agreed programme of 24-hour strikes starting from Monday.
Gordon Brown earlier yesterday told the House of Commons there was "no justification" for the continuation of industrial action, in what was seen as a hardline stance against the CWU.
Two sides of the battle
PROS OF STRIKE
- Private delivery companies, such as couriers, are given a rare unchallenged chance to fill the void.
- Fewer paper bills and less paper to recycle.
- British Gas said that 20,000 people moved to paperless billing last week.
- Potential stays of execution in some criminal and civil cases as court service papers, and jury service call ups delayed.
- No bills.
- A 100% reduction in junk mail.
CONS OF STRIKE
- Delays in delivery of important documents such as passports, pay cheques, driving licences, pensions, bank or credit cards and job applications.
- Cash flow crisis for firms that use cheques.
- Non-arrival of tickets for sporting and theatre events.
- Delays in sending out results of blood tests and tissue sample compatibility tests to hospitals so patients can get organs transplanted.
- Potential credit problems for consumers who have not paid bills.
- Non-arrival of birthday presents and cards.
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