Post strikes expected to go ahead

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/business/8328865.stm

Version 7 of 17.

The postal strikes due this week are expected to go ahead as it appears the Communication Workers Union and Royal Mail have yet to make a breakthrough.

The latest negotiations between the two sides over pay and working conditions came to an end earlier.

Leaders of the CWU are now being briefed on the meeting at the union's headquarters in south west London.

An announcement is expected later, just hours before 120,000 postal workers are due to start three 24-hour strikes.

For logistical reasons, CWU leaders are unlikely to go back to central London to resume talks with the Royal Mail, BBC business reporter Maryam Moshiri said.

The two sides had been locked in the latest round of talks since Monday, after agreeing to meet at the headquarters of the TUC.

The TUC helped to resolve a dispute between the CWU and the Royal Mail in 2007.

The business secretary Lord Mandelson said the government wanted to see the original modernisation and pay agreement that was put in place in 2007 being fully implemented.

"It was a fair deal," he said. "It addressed everyone's concerns and everyone's needs, not just the management and the customers of Royal Mail, but also the workforce."

Backlog

Royal Mail expects its backlog to have fallen from 30 million to two million items at the close of play on Wednesday. They say almost all of these letters and parcels are awaiting delivery in London.

The CWU had claimed the backlog caused by the two 24-hour strikes last Thursday and Friday was in excess of 100 million items at its peak.

If this week's strikes go ahead, they are due to involve:

<ul class="bulletList" ><li>Thursday - 43,700 staff in mail centres, delivery units in mail centres, network logistic drivers and garage staff walking out from 0400 GMT </li><li>Friday - 400 workers at three sites in Plymouth, Stockport and Stoke, who assist mail centres by reading and entering mail addresses </li><li>Saturday - 77,000 delivery and collection staff across the UK. </li></ul>

CWU deputy general secretary Dave Ward said the dispute was "fundamentally" about jobs but the issue of the Royal Mail's £10bn pension deficit also needed to be resolved urgently.

He said: "There's no prospect of us building a successful future for the Royal Mail and for the workforce unless the government actually deal with that issue."