DESPERATE Royal Mail has made a bizarre request to postal staff – asking them to bring their families to work to “save Christmas”.
Brits are facing a Christmas without presents as the postal walkout has caused depots to become overwhelmed with stranded deliveries.
The latest 48-hour strike by the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents 115,000 postal workers, started on Wednesday.
And further strike action is planned to hit just before Christmas Day, going ahead on December 23 and 24.
Now Royal Mail has asked staff to “bring friends and family to support the operation and deliver Christmas”.
Bosses say the idea is “a really great initiative” and could be “really quick” to save the festive season, reports The Telegraph.
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But workers are less convinced – with the Communication Workers Union describing the scheme as “next level desperation from Royal Mail”.
They said: “The support for the strike is so strong that they are asking managers to bring in friends and family to clear the backlog.”
They added that “Royal Mail are risking serious security risks by bringing in completely untrained randomers with no experience to plough through your Christmas post.
“There is a better day of dealing with this backlog: stop the destruction of your workers’ livelihoods, guarantee you’ll treat them with the respect they deserve, and let them get back on with grafting over Christmas.”
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Royal Mail say that friends and family would be paid the same rates as agency staff, and that checks are carried out to ensure all staff can work safely and legally.
It comes after shocking pictures of the Royal Mail's main Bristol depot in Filton showed the effect strike chaos is having on the Christmas deliveries.
One CWU member said: "The packages have now attracted rats and other animals, including a fox."
Another local CWU official said: “Things are being left out in the open at Bristol Mail Centre and I believe it’s the case that vermin and other animals are having a go.”
And the situation at the depot appears to be out-of-control, as one unnamed worker laughed off plans to cover the deliveries from the elements.
"It would have to be the biggest tarpaulin in the world as everything has been ruined", they said.
The Royal Mail claimed the stunning pictures of the backlog show the 30,000 deliveries that travel through the depot every hour.
The delivery service added that they were moving “very quickly through the centre and on to the next stage in their journey”.
It reportedly did not respond to claims that rats and foxes, along with rain and snow, were damaging the Christmas deliveries.
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