Royal Mail boss claims striking workers are trying 'to destroy Christmas'

Royal Mail's CEO has claimed striking posties are trying to "destroy Christmas" in a bizarre instance of hyperbole.

Speaking to Sky News' Kay Burley, Simon Thompson criticised the Communication Workers Union (CWU) ahead of their fresh round of strikes, and painted them as big Scrooges.

"I want to offer a huge apology to our customers," he said.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

He added: "We are doing absolutely everything we can to make sure that we protect Christmas whilst the CWU leadership are doing everything they can to destroy Christmas".

Postal workers have begun a fresh round of strikes for 48 hours over pay and conditions.

115,000 workers are involved in the strike and they want a pay rise that matches inflation, which is currently 11.1 per cent.

Royal Mail has made a revised offer up to 9 per cent over 18 months, calling it its "best and final offer". However, it says "no talks are happening" and last month announced they were cutting 10,000 jobs by next August

Meanwhile, another wave of strikes is planned in the run-up to Christmas - on 9, 11, 14, 15, 23 and 24 December.

On strike days Royal Mail will not be able to deliver first and second class letters, but will deliver as many parcels and Special Delivery letters as possible.

And the last posting days to ensure delivery before Christmas are currently 19 December for 2nd class and 21 December for 1st class mail.

CWU general secretary Dave Ward said that offer represented a "devastating blow" to postal workers' livelihoods and urged the public to "stand with their postie".

"Royal Mail bosses are risking a Christmas meltdown because of their stubborn refusal to treat their employees with respect," he said on Tuesday.

He added that postal workers wanted to "get on with serving the communities they belong to" and tackling the backlog of presents and Christmas cards that has built up in recent weeks.

Will someone think of the Christmas cards!

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.