LAST-DITCH talks aimed at preventing crippling post strikes will be held today as union leaders consider a legal challenge to the recruitment of up to 30,000 temporary staff by Royal Mail.
The company, facing two national walkouts on Thursday and Friday, announced it was hiring twice the number of extra staff it usually takes on in the run-up to Christmas.
The leader of the Communication Workers Union said the move would “inflame” the long-running dispute over jobs, pay and services and repeated his call for outside mediators to be brought in to break the deadlock.
CWU officials said they believed the recruitment of temporary staff during a strike was illegal.
Regulations amended in 2007 state 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.
CWU general secretary Billy Hayes said the recruitment announcement was typical of the culture of management at Royal Mail.
