New mail wrangle (From Witney Gazette)

New mail wrangle

8:21am Wednesday 26th July 2006 in Witney By Samantha Simpson

POSTAL workers in West Oxfordshire plan to vote whether or not to take official strike action as mail deliveries remain chaotic following a wildcat strike.

Piles of post from a fortnight ago remain stacked up at the Royal Mail's depot in Witney and some local households have received only sporadic deliveries since workers agreed to return to work on Tuesday of last week, following a four-day unofficial strike.

Oxfordshire Communication Workers Union, which represents postal workers, said deliveries were not back to normal because the backlog was so big. Workers were unable to clear it during normal working hours and managers had banned any overtime following the strike.

Royal Mail said the ban was imposed to stop workers recovering money lost during the unlawful action, which had disrupted services.

CWU spokesman Bob Cullen said the situation could worsen in the next two weeks as notice had been given to the Royal Mail of an intention to ballot postal workers at Witney and Carterton delivery offices for official strike action over claims of alleged harassment and bullying of staff by management.

The original walkouts in Witney and Carterton were sparked by separate disputes involving the treatment of individual staff by managers.

Mr Cullen said staff returned to work after Royal Mail promised the situations would be resolved, but so far this had not happened.

He said: "What's happened now is that staff are being told they won't get paid any overtime at all and that they could face disciplinary action if their work is not complete which is impossible with the backlog and the mail still coming in.

"The postmen in Witney and Carterton don't take strike action lightly. They care about their customers but the way they have been treated is disgraceful."

A spokesman for Royal Mail admitted it had taken longer than expected to get delivery services back to normal, but managers and temporary staff had been drafted in to try to clear the backlog.

She said: "We expect to clear the backlog soon. We apologise to customers for any inconvenience caused as a result of this unlawful action. We are limiting overtime opportunities for those who took part in the dispute as we do not want people to recover money lost during the unlawful action which disrupted our service to customers."