UK postal strike talks resume today

Talks to try to break the deadlocked postal dispute in the UK are expected to resume today as the Royal Mail faces legal action over the recruitment of 30,000 agency staff during the strike.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) served notice of action in the High Court on Friday after considering the move for the past few weeks.

The company has denied that the 30,000 workers are being used to break the series of post strikes, insisting they are dealing with the backlog of post as well as preparing for the Christmas rush.

Meanwhile, talks between the two sides aimed at resolving the row over jobs, pay and modernisation are to resume today, sources have said.

The British government was earlier threatened with legal action if it did not investigate claims that agency staff have been unlawfully hired to do the work of striking postal workers.

The GMB union wrote to British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson calling on him to investigate the role of employment agencies which have supplied temporary staff to the Royal Mail.

The union believes the law has been broken in recent weeks because it is illegal to take on staff to do the work of people involved in a lawful industrial dispute.

The GMB demanded an investigation into alleged breaches of the law in Slough, Bristol and Dartford, warning it did not rule out taking enforcement proceedings against the Business Department and government if they failed to act.

General secretary Paul Kenny said in a letter to Mandelson that there were specific cases involving agency staff being taken on in recent weeks seemingly to do the jobs of strikers, which needed to be investigated as a matter of urgency.

Mr Kenny said in his letter: "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.

"I am calling on you and your department to instruct the agency to investigate these and other cases and to properly enforce the law for which you and your department are responsible.

"GMB reserves the right, if you and your department fail to carry out your lawful responsibilities or act in a prejudicial way, to seek enforcement proceedings against your department and the government."

The move came as both sides in the postal dispute continued to study proposals drawn up by TUC general secretary Brendan Barber aimed at resolving the dispute.

The Royal Mail said the backlog of post caused by three days of strike action last week had halved to 25 million yesterday, but further walkouts are planned for Friday and next Monday unless the deadlock is broken.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "The up to 30,000 directly engaged, fully-vetted temporary workers being hired by Royal Mail to help us clear any mail delayed by strikes and help with Christmas volumes are entirely in line with all employment law.

"In addition we normally use agency staff throughout the year to help cover sick and holiday absence, fluctuations in volumes and higher volumes at Christmas and these agency workers are absolutely not hired to do the work of postal workers when they are on strike and also completely in line with employment law."