THE Isle of Man Trades Union Council (IOMTUC) has backed strike action planned by postal workers.

It was announced yesterday that around half of the postal staff in the Island will carry out a 24 hour strike starting on Tuesday, April 12 at 5.30am

The IOMTUC represents workers in the public and private sector in the Island and said it is backing the action given the post office's refusal to go to arbitration.

President Angela Moffatt said: "Strike is a last resort and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) is moving towards this step because of the inability to have the matter independently determined.

"If Isle Of Man Post have such a strong case, you would expect they would have nothing to fear from the process – in other words, an arbitrator would accept a pay freeze as the most appropriate step.

"It is not as though an arbitrator has never taken this kind of decision in the recent past over here. It's a straightforward and accepted way to settle disputes. People may not like the outcome but that is part of the risk."

The IOMTUC is supporting the CWU's suggestion that the matter is settled via arbitration, and urges the Isle of Man Government to finally intervene to make this happen.
 
Andrew Shipley, the vice president of the IOMTUC, said: "We understand the need to protect jobs – my own union the ATL has been involved in redeployment and redundancy already within the public sector over the last few years and it is not pleasant.

"However the attitude of Isle Of Man Post is pretty poor given the offer of binding arbitration from the CWU. The situation is not helped by the approach seemingly being adopted by politicians of standing back and letting things happen.

"The political response is especially questionable – over how many more issues are we going to see politicians sit in their 'ivory tower', whilst the rest of the Island struggles on the ground to solve the issues we are now facing. It's simply not good enough."