Royal Mail staff to stage strike

Staff at two Royal Mail delivery facilities in the Bristol area have voted to strike.

Communication Workers' Union (CWU) members at Clevedon and Easton are involved in a dispute with management about overtime.

Clevedon-based staff are due to walk out on Saturday, 6 August, for 16 hours. Action at Easton will be decided at a meeting on Friday.

Royal Mail has said it will "pull out all the stops" to avoid disruption.

The CWU has warned that it is planning further dates which will be announced in the "near future".

Area official Dave Wilshire said: "Our members at Clevedon are extremely angry about having their earnings reduced.

Strike support

"[They] are appalled that managers who continually cite the fact we should all be working together are clearly intent on ignoring the views of their staff.

"This dispute could have been avoided if Royal Mail had acted reasonably."

A statement from Royal Mail argued that the Clevedon strike did not have as good support as the CWU suggested.

"In fact 24 out of the 46 members of staff at the delivery office voted in favour."

The statement added: "The dispute centres on a reduction in scheduled overtime hours.

"During busier months, Royal Mail routinely allocates 18 hours of overtime per week to help cope with high volumes of mail.

"However, during the summer months of July and August, mail volumes drop by as much as 30% in the Bristol area."

The statement said it was "difficult to justify" the extra overtime to deal with "non-existent excess mail".