Local posties row Royal Mail over ‘scab’ jobs

Post box in Sutton Place, Hackney E9

‘Scab’ jobs at the Royal Mail should be boycotted during strikes, said Hackney and east London postal workers and trade unions on Wednesday night, claiming they were illegal.

Royal Mail jobs advertised by Job Centre Plus and other agencies are apparently damaging industrial action and strikes after north and east London posties went to the picket line nearly three weeks before the national strikes.

In a meeting on Stoke Newington High Street, various union groups, including the Communication Workers Union and Hackney Trades Union Council, agreed that an assertive campaign should be launched to dissuade people from taking temporary jobs with Royal Mail.

Numerous adverts have been placed by Job Centre Plus and other agencies for staff and Christmas postal workers in north and east London, as Royal Mail attempt to shift a massive backlog in post as regular staff walked out over work conditions and pay disputes.

Many unionists see the mass national recruitment of over 30,000 workers as a means for Royal Mail management to break the strike.

Yet overworked temporary staff brought in during the strikes are deluded if they believe it will lead to a full time job, said Chris Shuffle, 46, a 20 year employee of Royal Mail, based at the Emma Street delivery office in Bethnal Green.

He claimed that many toil an extra two hours a day without pay at his Hackney office, “all on the promise of a job that will never materialise.”

The jobs are not unusual or illegal, according to a spokesman for Royal Mail, who said that the adverts for extra Christmas staff were the norm at this type of year, even during the strikes.

He said, “The 30,000 people we are now planning to recruit will be temporary vetted people engaged directly by Royal Mail, who are separate to the vetted agency staff who, as a matter of course, work with Royal Mail throughout the year to help us deal with fluctuations in volumes, particularly in the run up to Christmas.

“Clearly all of this is absolutely in line with employment law.”

However, Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, hit out against the recruitment plans last week, arguing that they break a 2007 regulation amendment stating that agencies may not supply temporary workers to replace strikers during official industrial disputes.

“There are strict laws that forbid employers and employment agencies using agency staff to break a lawful dispute and it is the job of [business secretary] Lord Mandelson ‘s department to enforce those laws,” he said.

In the meanwhile 99 per cent of all posties in north and east London were supporting the strike and manning picket lines in favour of better work conditions, said Angie Mulcahy, 42, a Royal Mail processing representative for the region.

Representatives from the CWU and other unions will be taking a collection for east London postal strikers on Kingsland High Road, in Dalston this Saturday.