Postal drivers to strike on Wednesday (From Witney Gazette)

Postal drivers to strike on Wednesday

8:30am Thursday 27th August 2009 in Business By Chris Koenig

ROYAL MAIL drivers taking Oxfordshire’s post to and from the new sorting centre in Swindon are to go on strike — just months after the troubled Cowley centre closed.

The 70 HGV drivers are protesting about pay and modernisation by striking for 24 hours from 4am on Wednesday to 4am on Thursday.

Chris Rye, CWU (Communication Workers Union) spokesman at the Swindon centre, said more strikes of one or two days would follow. “There will be more strikes the following week, but I am not yet sure on which days they will fall.

“The 800 workers at the Swindon mail centre have also voted yes for a strike in the near future, but again I don’t know yet when that will be,” he said.

A spokesman for Royal Mail, Jaquie Stenson, condemned the action, saying modernisation was much needed and had already been successfully implemented in the majority of offices around the UK. She said the drivers' strike would cause delays to post throughout Oxfordshire, despite contingency plans, including the use of managers to minimise the strike’s impact. It is part of a nationwide week of action.