Strikes are picking up pace in the run-up to Christmas as workers squeezed by rising costs fight for higher pay. In separate industrial action, Royal Mail employees, rail workers, and driving examiners will walk out on Wednesday. It comes ahead of the first-ever nationwide strike by nurses this week. On Friday, rail workers, buses, baggage handlers, highway workers, and driving examiners will be on strike.
Postal strikes
Industrial action by 115,000 members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) coincides with the busiest time of year for Royal Mail when people and businesses are sending Christmas cards and presents. Some parcel companies claim the Royal Mail strike is having a knock-on effect, and forcing them to delay next-day deliveries as people and firms seek alternative ways to send their post.
DPD Group said: “We are experiencing short delays to our next-day delivery service in a small number of locations, as a result of the industrial action at the Royal Mail, which has had a huge knock-on effect across the entire industry.” Evri, the delivery company formerly known as Hermes, said that severe weather, Royal Mail strikes and staff shortages are causing “some localised delays”. While Yodel also said that deliveries are taking longer to some areas but did not specify why. As well as holding strikes this week, Royal Mail workers will also take industrial action on 23 December and Christmas Eve.
The dispute has been going on since the summer and like all the industrial action across rail, the NHS, teachers, border staff and driving instructors, pay is a key issue. Workers are seeking wage rises as the cost of living soars. The rate at which prices are rising, known as inflation, is running at more than 11% which is the fastest pace for more than 40 years. This is largely due to food and energy prices going up.
‘Making life hard’
One small business in Brighton which relies on Royal Mail to get its products to customers said the strikes in the run-up to Christmas were “frustrating”. Lucy Bryant, who runs her artist’s studio, Haus of Lucy, says she supports the strikers as “everyone has a right to fair pay”. However, she relies “so heavily on the post” to get products from suppliers and to send her art to customers that she says the Royal Mail strikes “have made my life very hard this Christmas season”. “I’ve got the frustration of my customers to deal with,” when artworks don’t arrive on time in the run-up to Christmas, she says. “It’s frustrating for them, and it’s frustrating for me.”
