Royal Mail workers to stage a second walkout

LONDON, July 5 (Reuters) Royal Mail workers today announced another 24-hour strike over pay and job cuts -- the second day of industrial action in two weeks.

Postal workers will walk out today, July 12, and continue their strike action through Friday, July 13, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) said.

It threatened to take further action if negotiations over pay and working hours are not resumed with the Royal Mail management.

CWU Deputy General Secretary Dave Ward said: ''This problem will not go away -- Royal Mail are in denial if they think otherwise.'' Union members went on strike on Friday, June 29 -- their first national strike in 11 years.

The CWU said earlier in June its members had voted in favour of industrial action due to Royal Mail's ''below inflation pay offer'' and its plans to reduce the workforce by around 40,000, or about 27 percent, by automating mail-sorting processes.

Royal Mail said the strike would add to the challenges it faces but it would continue to try and resolve the situation.

The company said it had to modernise to prevent the business from failing and that the only way it could improve pay, protect pensions and deliver customer service was by modernising.

It said the union's demands would cost the company more than one billion pounds a year and be the equivalent of a 27 per cent rise in basic pay.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: ''Royal Mail calls again on the union to abandon strike action and the threat of disruption and focus on the need to modernise Royal Mail at pace.'' It has offered a 2.5 per cent pay rise.

The company is fighting private competition from Business Post, Dutch mail company TNT NV and others after losing its 350-year monopoly on postal services last year.

The group, which said last month that it had lost an 8 million pound contract with online retailer Amazon.com, lost key business when the government began paying benefits such as state pensions directly to claimants' bank accounts rather than through post offices.

REUTERS SY HS2309