Up to 70,000 post workers strike

Rick (postal worker): "We have to stand up to Royal Mail and their bullying tactics"

As many as 70,000 postal delivery and collection staff have failed to turn up to work on the third day of industrial action across the country.

Saturday is the last of the current three days of strikes, but the Communication Workers Union (CWU) plans further walkouts on 6 and 9 November.

Royal Mail said 25% of delivery workers had turned up for duty on Saturday.

Days of talks between the CWU and Royal Mail have so far not resolved their differences over pay and modernisation.

Mail backlog

The parties have been meeting this week at the TUC headquarters in London.

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, who helped settle a dispute between the parties in 2007, said both sides would be examining fresh proposals over the weekend with a view to returning to the negotiating table "early next week".

The turnout of a quarter of delivery staff on Saturday meant some households received post as normal, Royal Mail said.

Meanwhile, the backlog of undelivered mail caused by the strikes has risen to 35 million items, the company has said.

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But the CWU said this estimate was "laughable", alleging that between 50 million and 60 million items had in fact been delayed.

Unlike the current strikes, which have involved members in different roles striking on different days, the two new dates will be all-out strikes.

On Thursday, an estimated 44,000 CWU members took part in strike action across the country, while on Friday about 400 workers at three sites in Plymouth, Stockport and Stoke went on strike.

These strikes followed two 24-hour stoppages last week - by delivery and collection workers on 23 October, the day after action by mail centre staff.

The company said Saturday's 25% turnout by delivery workers was higher than the 20% who worked during the earlier strike day.

Royal Mail says it is trying to modernise to compensate for letter volumes dropping by 10% every year as people switch to other forms of communication such as e-mails and SMS text messages.

It has shed 63,000 frontline postal staff in recent years and says it needs to cut more jobs as part of continuing modernisation plans.

The CWU agrees that job cuts are necessary but disagrees over their extent and over the future pay and working conditions of the workers that remain.