Post union flexes muscles with double whammy

The 24-hour strike will see all 121,000 post workers in Britain, from postmen on the street to mail sorters and long distance lorry drivers, stop deliveries in the fourth national strike against Royal Mail bosses forcing through thousands of job cuts.

Management attempts to set up strikebreaking operations by staffing huge temporary mail centres with minimum wage agency workers will be challenged in court by the union on the same day.

CWU general secretary Billy Hayes has been given a legal opinion by labour lawyer John Hendy QC that argues that the strikebreaking move by Royal Mail management is unlawful under regulation 7 of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003.

This law states that "an employment business may not supply a temporary worker to a hirer to replace an individual taking part in an official strike or any other official industrial dispute."

However, Royal Mail has set up at least three mail centres in Bristol, Slough and Dartford near London, and has taken on 30,000 unemployed workers - twice as many as last winter - through employment agencies such as Reed and Manpower to handle a backlog of millions of undelivered letters and parcels.

Executives denied that the strikebreakers were agency staff, claiming that all the workers were "directly engaged in line with employment law to help with the Christmas mail."

But GMB union leader Paul Kenny weighed in on the dispute to offer solidarity with the post workers, and threatened Business Secretary Peter Mandelson with legal action if the government "fails to carry out its lawful responsibilities" and investigate the hiring of agency workers during the strike.

"There is an agency in the department you run that has a duty to investigate breaches and it has a very poor track record in enforcing the law," Mr Kenny warned Mr Mandelson.

"I am calling on you to properly enforce the law for which you and your department are responsible," he declared.