POSTAL workers in Oxfordshire are striking again today in a long-running dispute over pay and conditions, with more walkouts planned in the build up to the busy Christmas period.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) said its 115,000 members across the UK joined the latest stoppage, describing it as the largest strike in a year that has seen industrial unrest across several industries, including rail.

Picket lines were mounted outside Royal Mail offices around the county earlier this morning on the sixth day of action in recent months.

 

Today workers protested in front of delivery offices in Oxford, Wantage, Kidlington, Wallingford, and Carterton, holding banners reading ‘striking to protect our terms, conditions and pay.’

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The union accused Royal Mail of planning structural change, which would effectively see employees in secure, well-paid jobs turned into a “casualised, financially precarious workforce overnight”.

The CWU said plans include delaying the arrival of post to members of the public by three hours, cuts in workers’ sick pay and inferior terms for new employees.

 

The union has announced 19 further days of strike action in the coming weeks.

General secretary Dave Ward said: “Postal workers face the biggest ever assault on their jobs, terms and conditions in the history of Royal Mail.

“The public and businesses also face the end of daily deliveries and destruction of the special relationship that postal workers and the public have in every community in the UK.

“It is insulting the intelligence of every postal worker for Royal Mail chief executive Simon Thompson to claim that their change agenda is ‘modernisation’.”

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This story was written by Anna Colivicchi, she joined the team this year and covers health stories for the Oxfordshire papers. 

Get in touch with her by emailing: Anna.colivicchi@newsquest.co.uk

Follow her on Twitter @AnnaColivicchi