Posties defiant

OLDHAM’S postal staff manned the picket lines today insisting they had to strike despite the chaos and damage it will cause to the business.

And another 24-hour walkout by 250 workers at the Hamilton Street centre will follow next Saturday in a second wave of national strikes which begin on Thursday.

Communication Workers Union (CWU) steward Angela Green, on the Oldham picket line, said: “We feel we have to do this and it’s the last stand. The Government owns us. It should be stepping in and doing something.

“No one wants to strike and no one wins. It’s been forced on us. We feel we have to do this and it’s the last stand.

“It ends when we get a national agreement and until then we’re prepared to keep coming out on strike.”

Colleague Dave Mann added: “It’s the last resort we have. Non-negotiations on the top management side are to blame. We are being dictated to.

“They’ve changed our start and finish time twice in the past 18 months and there’s the possibility they will change them again.”

The action has caused disruption to deliveries for businesses and residents and there are fears that further strikes will increase the backlog of post and cripple the system in the run-up to Christmas.

The dispute centres on the modernisation of Royal Mail, the implementation of automated systems, thousands of job cuts and moving deliveries to later in the day.

Oldham West and Royton MP Michael Meacher said everyone loses out by the strike, while politicians have likened the action to “lemmings falling off a cliff.”

More than 20 Oldham staff were on the picket lines from 5am, waving placards saying “negotiate not dictate”, with dozens more joining throughout the day.

Across the country, 120,000 members of the CWU are involved in the dispute.

Oldham’s strikers said they are not against modernisation and have public support. There were fears Royal Mail’s plan to take on 30,000 temporary staff to deal with the effects of the strike and the Christmas rush would cause violence on the picket lines.

But the stewards insisted that there was no backlog in Oldham, so no need for the “strike breakers”, and there has never been trouble on their picket lines before. They pledged to do their best to get mail cleared when back at work.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called the strike “self-defeating” and urged the union to get round the negotiating table.

The union has offered "unconditional" talks at the conciliation service Acas in a bid to break the deadlock.