Britain faces ‘de facto general strike’, says postal union chief

Britain is facing a “de facto general strike” with a walkout planned every day until Christmas, according to the leader of industrial action against Royal Mail.

Dave Ward, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), said the scale of unrest in the private and public sectors means the country has effectively met the definition of a general strike affecting a substantial portion of the economy.

He said: “It's almost like a de facto general strike taking place by the amount of disputes.”

A general strike has not taken place since 1926, despite the waves of industrial action that culminated with the “winter of discontent” in 1978. The Telegraph revealed this week that Britain now faces a significant strike every day until Christmas.

Mr Ward said the CWU was working with other unions. To be official a general strike it must be coordinated by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), however.

“We are involved in other campaigns,” he said. “The CWU has been a union that's been calling for a new deal for workers. A serious look at insecurity of work. A serious look at the balance of forces in the world of work.

Mr Ward and Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport workers union (RMT), which has led a similarly fierce campaign on the railways, have both appeared on each others’ picket lines.

“What happened to the business leaders who were genuine innovators?” said Mr Ward.

“Whatever you think of people like Henry Ford, who made shedloads of money; what you couldn't argue about big industrialists was that they built things. And people benefited. Society benefited from what they built.

“The observation I would have with the type of business leaders we've got now is that they break things up. You know, there's such a different approach. And they've got one playbook that they use, which is to compete in the race to the bottom.”

The CWU, which boasts almost 200,000 members who work in the postal and telecoms sectors, is in a bitter row with Royal Mail. Tempers flared on picket lines this week amid allegations of vandalism and violence as the CWU staged the latest in a long run of 48-hour walkouts. On Saturday afternoon the union posted videos online which it said showed thousands of undelivered letters and parcels being held in Royal Mail warehouses.

Royal Mail, chaired by Keith Williams, a veteran of industrial disputes during his time as the boss of British Airways, and chief executive Simon Thompson, wants to impose major reforms to working practices at the 500-year-old business.

Royal Mail says that it is losing more than £1m per day as the number of letters sent tumbles and it loses ground on parcel deliveries to more agile rivals such as Amazon.

Mr Thompson wants to ditch Saturday letter deliveries – which will require consent from Parliament – and switch the company’s focus to a seven-day-a-week parcels operation.

Significant changes are being planned by Royal Mail’s 150,000 employees, including later start times, working on weekends and greater use of automation to sort deliveries. Up to 10,000 redundancies are being planned.

Royal Mail has legal obligations to make deliveries across the length and breadth of the UK. It means the company's posties visit 32 million households every day, six-days-a-week.

Mr Ward said: “If Amazon were in control of Royal Mail’s infrastructure, I guarantee you now they would be leveraging that as a competitive advantage.”

“We're saying, compete through your natural advantage and innovate. He's saying the only market that Royal Mail is interested in is parcels.

Mr Ward rejected claims of inflexibility: “We’ve said we will deliver 24/7. We've agreed to that.

“Can a postal worker become something more than just delivering parcels? Can they become somebody who actually supports people who might be vulnerable in society?

“We've talked about calling on elderly people. Delivering prescriptions is a great idea. Where people who can't get out and about, we actually pick up their prescription, and we deliver it.

“There's so many other things. I'm not saying I've got all the answers here at this point in time. What I'm saying to you is, we agreed to explore in a deeper way, how we could develop the infrastructure and Royal Mail and how we develop new products and services.

“And that adding social value is something that if we spent six months looking at all of the things that are absent from local communities, now, there used to be, that we could come up with a range of services.”

Mr Ward claimed the pace of change at Royal Mail is being controlled by Daniel Kretinsky, the “Czech sphinx” investor who has a 22pc stake.

“Absolutely it is being driven by the potential takeover,” he said. "It is definitely outside forces… that have brought this about.”

Mr Kretinsky did meet Mr Ward’s deputy, Terry Pullinger, earlier this year. Mr Ward said: “The honest feedback I had was that Kretinsky was saying that Thompson was useless.”

The claim is strongly refuted by sources close to Royal Mail, who say such allegations are counterintuitive given Mr Kretinsky's support for the board's strategic reforms.

There has been outcry among businesses big and small at Royal Mail strikes. CWU will stage further walkouts on 9, 11, 14, 15, 23 and 24 December if a breakthrough cannot be found.

Mr Thompson has warned that the longer the strikes go on, the number of redundancies will rise - potentially beyond 10,000.

Mr Ward denies any suggestion that, like RMT’s Mick Lynch, he is the “Grinch who stole Christmas” for targeting the festive period.

“If you spoke to postal workers... they don't want to be out on strike,” he said. “They want to be out there delivering up until Christmas and [during] Christmas. But you tell them what alternative we've got?

“What I'd say to these people who are trying to portray postal workers in the union is sort of stealing Christmas, they need to remember that we're the ones that are actually fighting for the service.”