More Post Office strikes

14^th June 2013

 For immediate release

 Post Office strikes number 6 and 7

 CWU has served notice for a further two rounds of strike action next Thursday 20 June and Saturday 29 June in an ongoing dispute over closures, job security and pay. Talks have made no progress despite the Post Office preparing to announce a £94 million profit, smashing its target by £10m which CWU expects will mean large bonuses for senior executives. CWU is now calling for Paula Vennells the Chief Executive to get involved to resolve the dispute.

The Post Office wants to close and/or franchise 76 Crown offices, 20% of the network and cut up to 1,500 jobs. These main offices comprise 3% of total post offices but handle 20% of all customers and 40% of all financial services sales making them the powerhouse of the network. Staff at the 373 Crown Post Offices have not had a pay rise since April 2011 while all other staff represented by CWU in the Post Office have had two pay rises totalling 6.75% in this period.

  

Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary, said: “This dispute can’t be resolved while the CEO Paula Vennells remains aloof and absent from talks. We’ve had informal talks this week which allowed a good exchange of views and discussion on various options, but there’s no change, no new offers and no movement from the Post Office.

“We will be writing to the Chair of the Board, Alice Perkins, regarding the lack of engagement from the CEO on this serious and longstanding dispute.

“We will also be holding a parliamentary event to galvanise the already significant political support we have. We will highlight that the Post Office plans are a closure programme by stealth which will drastically affect the network and the services which communities rely on.

“It’s time that Paula Vennells got her hands dirty and engaged with this dispute which affects the post office network’s biggest branches. It’s no good hiding in the shadows and hoping we’ll go away.”

  

Strike action will take place from 2pm on Thursday 20 June and all day on Saturday 29 June. It will affect up to 4,000 staff working in 373 Crown (main) post offices. Post Office staff voted by nine to one (88%) in favour of strike action and have already taken strike action on five previous occasions: Easter Saturday, 19 and 29 April, 7 and 28 May.

The closure and franchising plans are meeting stiff opposition across the country with tens of thousands signing petitions, and public meetings unanimously rejecting the plans.

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 For more information please contact:

 Sian Jones, Press Officer, tel: 020 8971 7267, mobile: 0779 3314249, e-mail:sbjones@cwu.org