First parcels waylaid in postal strike will be last to be delivered
As millions of households and firms face a fortnight of postal disruption, the strike
action paralysing Royal Mail is set to create a three week backlog of parcels and
letters.
Jonathan de Carteret, founder of broker Post-Switch, told the Guardian that Royal
Mail was using special warehouses to house the undelivered mail, which will get
topped up as and when more strikes take place. Parcels and letters waylaid by the
first strikes will be the last to get delivered because they will be literally at
the bottom of the pile.
"While Royal Mail works through the backlog, it's unfortunately a case of first
in, last out," he said.
Experts said that some post will take almost three weeks to get delivered before
postal services get back to normal.
But if the industrial dispute between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union
(CWU) drags on and more strikes are called, some items stuck in the system will
take even longer to reach their destination.
The first of the 30,000 temporary staff which Royal Mail is taking on will not start
work until next week to help clear the backlog, the company said.
Post-Switch estimated that less than a third of mail normally delivered will get
through during the two-day strike – about 33 million items out of the 110 million
typically delivered daily at this time of year.
This will add an estimated 150 million items to the existing backlog of about 30
million parcels and letters, which it said would take two weeks to clear, provided
no further strikes took place.
Rival operators have ramped up operations to make sure parcels get delivered. Richard
Adams-Mercer, business development director for online delivery company
Parcel2Go.com, said that his company was experiencing unprecedented numbers
of visitors to its website due to the strike action at Royal Mail.
“We have extra staff working around the clock to cope with the increased demand,”
he said, adding that 15 million eBayer’s were needing help with deliveries to keep
trading aswell.
CWU has timed the dispute – like the last national strikes two years ago – to coincide
with Royal Mail's busiest time of year, the run-up to Christmas.
Send a parcel with Parcel2Go.com
