Scottish posties prepare to strike over Royal Mail’s bad weather deductions
By Gary Clark, branch secretary, Communication Workers' Union, Scotland no 2 branch
Scottish postal workers are extremely angry with management’s response to the recent extreme weather. For the first time we saw the a “red warning” for snow issued. Scottish Government and Police Scotland advice was not to travel, except for an emergency.
Many postal workers either followed the advice or were unable to travel to work over this period. They were therefore shocked to find Royal Mail’s attitude was very unhelpful. Members who did not get to work were given three options: take the day you could not get to work as annual leave; work back lost time; lose pay for the time lost.
The mood soon turned from shock to anger as stories of members getting docked wages started going around.
At an all reps meeting last Friday I moved a motion that we request a rule 13 ballot (a formal request for an industrial action ballot). This received 100% support from the reps present.
The Scottish government stated that they will take action against any company which deducts wages from any employee. Over this period there was no public transport and it was impossible to travel.
This clearly shows the disregard management have for the wellbeing of our members and viewed this as a opportunity for cost saving. We now estimate that over 700 workers have lost some annual leave days.
We have been the first branch to call for strike action to fight back and have had a large amount of media coverage over this issue.
Our request for strike action has received wide support from our members and public and from our deputy general secretary, Terry Pullinger, who is attempting to get Royal Mail’s action overturned at a national level. We have made it clear we will not back down and are prepared to take strike action to defend our members
