'London should win the support of every postal worker'

Our dispute is not just a London issue. Royal Mail cannot shut two mail centres and a giant delivery office without forcing through compulsory redundancies.

That has implications for the union everywhere. This is a fight to defend our terms and conditions. Royal Mail managers view us as overpaid and under worked.

They say that the business’s “financial difficulties” mean that workers are unaffordable.

But the financial state of the company is caused largely by an unfair valuation of our pension scheme and by the way the post office regulator forces Royal Mail to subsidise its competition.

In short, for the private firms to profit we have to deliver their mail at a loss. These problems are not caused by our “excessive wages”.

It’s the wages and pensions of Royal Mail’s executives that are unaffordable.

That is why we are absolutely right to ballot for strikes and why we are going all out to win it.

And any action London takes should win the support of every other postal worker in Britain.

The bosses are out to break the union in the run up to privatisation.

Let’s make sure they don’t get away with it.