Post Office workers have announced plans for their fourth walkout since Easter after the company confirmed plans to relocate 70 of its big high street and city centre branches to retailers.
The Communication Workers Union (CWU), said the proposal to franchise out 70 of the Post Office’s 370 “crown” branches would “rip the heart out” of the post office network.
General Secretary of the CWU, Billy Hayes said: “This is a seminal moment for the Post Office. Closure and franchising plans would decimate the remaining crown network, slashing it by over 20 per cent.”
The CWU’s 4,000 crown post office members voted nine-to-one in favour of a full-day walkout which is due to take place tomorrow.
The Post Office said franchising out 70 of the crown branches was crucial to securing the future of the service.
Post Office’s sales director Kevin Gilliland, said the crown network of the biggest post offices across the country is losing £40m a year of public money and must alter the way they operate to provide long term viability.
The CWU claims up to 800 Post Office contracts will be affected and employees are likely to receive lower pay, pension and working conditions if they are moved to retailers’ properties.
The Post Office said it had offered crown network staff a reasonable £3,400 staged payment in compensation. The pay-off is worth about one sixth of an average Post Office employee’s yearly salary.
The company said it was “extremely disappointed” at the union’s unwillingness to understand the need for the Post Office to carry out these vital modernisation plans to transform its crown network into a viable business that is not dependent on public money.
The Post Office said there would be no compulsory redundancies, and staff would have the choice of being relocated to the retailer taking over their post office or moving to a different branch.
The CWU said the plans were a government saving measure. “They want to reduce the amount of money provided for Post Office services and these cuts are leading to deeply unpopular proposals to close crown post offices and remove services from the high street,” Hayes said.
Crown post offices represent just 3 per cent of the nationwide network of 11,800 branches, but are generally the largest offices and handle 20 per cent of all transactions and 40 per cent of financial services sales, a vital growth area for the Post Office.
Six years ago 85 crown branches were closed in the Post Office’s last turnaround plan, 70 of them were relocated into WH Smith stores.
The Post Office said it had already received over 150 expressions of interest from retailers eager to run post offices services in their stores. Subject to a public discussion the crown branches will be relocated to the winning retailers before April 2015.
