Something for the CWU to think about

While dismissal of an employee during an official strike is automatically Unfair, that carries a minimum penalty of £2700 and a maximum of £66,200 (only typically reached for extremely high earners).

Sacking 30,000 workers and keeping the temps on would therefore cost between £81m (a quarter of Royal Mail's 2008-2009 profits) and £1.99bn (less than a third of the Royal Mail pension deficit, and about a fifth of its gross revenue) in fines. An award of 12 weeks' pay at £30k per annum, for 30,000 workers, would cost £207m.

A swing of 21,208 votes would have given a majority voting not to strike in the recent ballot, and mass sackings would certainly affect the willingness of people to strike.

In a recession, with 3m officially unemployed (and about the same on incapacity benefit or the like), you do not have the public's sympathy, the costs of unlawfully firing you can be met, and there are many people willing to do your jobs without union "protection". Just a thought. Not a pretty one, admittedly, but there's nothing inherently special about people who deliver letters.

- KoW

Death of a postman

So the CWU have voted 3-1 to strike, then. That's going to work out well for them.

The postal service has been unreliable and, quite frankly, bordering on useless for weeks, and now it's going to be stopped entirely. Fair enough. We're mostly managing without postal service at the moment, and you're going to force us to go cold turkey.

Like many people, I do my banking and credit cards online. I get a phone bill occasionally, but I never open it, as it's paid by direct debit. As are my council tax, insurance and utilities. If I get things by mail order, they come by courier. Airline tickets are emailed and printed (and are e-tickets anyway). The only thing I've desperately needed in the post this year - an employment contract - turned up five days late on a first-class stamp.

The post is not fit-for-purpose and striking is not going to make it so.

What do we need a postal service for, anyway?

- KoW