In the second week of December, Royal Mail’s sorting office in central London was expected to be one of the busiest places in the world.
With the holiday season fast approaching, 1.3 million letters and packages would normally tumble through Mount Pleasant’s mail center each day – some of them perhaps en route under a Christmas tree.
On Friday, however, Royal Mail’s cavernous sorting center was deserted.
Instead of the usual 1,000 people bustling about on the largest company premises, there are only 100 workers on site.
The rest are on strike on the 13th day of CWU union members’ industrial action since the beginning of the year – with five more days to come.
One of those who chose to work is Joy, a 28-year-old Royal Mail veteran who feeds heaps of letters into a giant, automated sorting machine.
For Joy, who is the plant manager, it is important to “keep the mail moving”, even if she doesn’t leave the center until the striking postal workers go back to work.
Firms worried about post-Covid business, he tells BBC “They need their letters and mail as soon as possible.”
Out in the cold, Nick is one of the 115,000 Royal Mail workers across the UK taking industrial action.
Like Joy, he’s worked for the company for decades, but a pay dispute, looming layoffs and changes in working conditions that Nick sees as unfair make strikes his only option.
Although he has walked on previous strikes in recent years, he says the gulf between management and unions seems wider this time.
“It seems to me that there isn’t really a negotiation,” he says. “It’s a take-it-or-leave deal where they’re attacking our terms and conditions.”
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Both Joy and Nick were happy to be interviewed, but declined to give their last names or be pictured. Industrial action can provoke violent reactions, no matter which side of the picket line you’re on.
Despite their differences, both men are proud to work for an institution that has been around for more than 500 years.
“It’s a good job and you’re a bit proud,” says Nick. “They look after customers and feel valued.”
Industrial action by Royal Mail workers also seems oddly genteel, especially compared to the violence that sometimes characterized the miners’ strikes of the early 1980s.
By contrast, the early morning gathering of strikers outside Mount Pleasant could be chanting “Thompson out” in a nod to Royal Mail Director General Simon Thompson, according to reports, but they respect people’s right to work during industrial action.
“If people want to come to work, they come to work,” says Nick. “People go in, we don’t say a word to them. We’re fighting for everyone here.”
But Jay Brooks, Royal Mail’s operations manager in Mount Pleasant, believes picketing is difficult for some people to break.
Rather than work in their own office on a strike day, they voluntarily travel to another location to help handle the mail, where they join agency workers employed by Royal Mail at this busy time of year, he says.
“I think there are some people who worry about crossing a picket line and what that will mean for their relationships with other people in their offices, which is probably why we sometimes see people prefer to go to an adjacent office. says Brooks.
“Of course it is a personal decision. We will tell the local people that it is their personal choice whether they come to work or not. We have to respect that one way or the other.”
For the time being there are five more strike dates on December 11th, 14th, 15th, 23rd and 24th.
As a result, people and businesses had to post earlier this year, likely causing frustration for some.
“I totally sympathize and totally understand people’s frustration with this,” Brooks says. “Ultimately, we all want this argument to end. From my perspective, I want to be excited about the future of Royal Mail.”
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