Royal Mail ‘plans’ mauled at meeting

Des Carney, branch secretary of the Communication Workers’ Union (standing) gave his views, watched by MP Phil Woolas (left) and Councillor Brian Lord

A POSTWOMAN gave an impassioned account of the daily struggle she and her colleagues face before 120 people who turned out to protest against a declining postal service.

The woman, among a group of Saddleworth postmen and women who were at the meeting, said: “Most of us work without a break and use our own cars and we are not treated with the respect we deserve.

“Six people work in my office and we do 10 rounds between us. Two days this week, I worked for eight hours without a break, I didn’t even have time to make a cup of tea.

“We have enforced overtime. A lot of us would do it anyway to continue to provide a service we are passionate about, but we are threatened into doing it, and we are all afraid of losing our jobs.”

She added: “I get paid £15,000 a year, but the pressure I am under I would think I was on £60,000 a year.

“I work in beautiful countryside, I have loyal customers, and yet I walk out of the office with my face to the ground.”

She spoke out at a meeting on Friday at Uppermill Civic Hall, called by local councillors Alan Roughley and John McCann to discuss alleged plans to change local postal operations.

A leaked document, which Royal Mail says is at this stage consultative, contained proposals to move part of the work done in delivery offices at Dobcross, Uppermill and Greenfield sub-post offices to Oldham.

The Royal Mail was invited to send a representative to the meeting, but it declined, saying it felt there was no need because the claims being made at the meeting were incorrect.

Royal Mail insists it has no plans to close the offices, but the worry at Friday’s meeting was that moving part of the delivery office work to Oldham and cutting payments to post offices which were already operating on “a knife edge”, could make them unviable.

Des Carney, Oldham and Rochdale branch secretary of the Communication Workers’ Union, told the meeting the proposal to split the work between Oldham and the Saddleworth offices was neither cost effective nor efficient, and predicted the delivery offices would eventually close.

He also said the proposals were for four full-time postmen jobs in Saddleworth to go, and two to be made part-time — a move Royal Mail hoped to make without redundancies by transferring staff to Oldham, from where they would deliver to Saddleworth.

Mr Carney said that would mean later rounds in Saddleworth, with some mail not being delivered until 3pm — too late, claimed Councillor Roughley, for businesses.

Oldham East and Saddleworth MP Phil Woolas distributed a letter from Royal Mail to him confirming a conversation held with him from which he understood the proposals would not involve the closure of any of the three delivery offices at Dobcross, Greenfield and Uppermill.

Signed by Christine Nolan, North of England head of external relations for Royal Mail, it also assured Mr Woolas that the claim that full-time staff would be replaced by part-timers was incorrect.

People called for another meeting, this time with the Royal Mail attending. They were also urged to sign a petition objecting to any planned cuts in delivery and collection services and to send complaint letters.