Thousands of Royal Mail workers have gathered outside Parliament to mark another strike in the increasingly bitter dispute over jobs, pay and conditions.
Many among the animated crowd are wearing pink hi-vis vests, waving flags and holding placards that read “strike to win” and “save our Royal Mail”.
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) was expecting more than 15,000 members to attend the rally, describing it as the biggest postal workers’ demonstration in living memory.
Dave Ward, CWU General Secretary, closed the rally after posties made a special delivery of a postcard to King Charles as the protest went past Buckingham Palace.
Sacha Heywood-Brotchie, a postal delivery worker, warned: “We really are being done over. They are just putting more and more on us, I just cannot cope with it.”
The 52-year-old from Mildenhall in Suffolk said: “Our rounds are so big. At Christmas time it is going to be unachievable.
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“We pride ourselves on not just delivering the mail, we are there for people, our customers. They are trying to make it not personal any more.
“We get old people who just want us to talk for five minutes and that will all be gone. That is part of being a postie, people want to talk to you, there are some lonely people out there
“If somebody asks for help, I’ll help them. I’m not going to say ‘sorry I’m being monitored’. “
Peter Westwell, 48, who works with his daughter Chloe, 24, in Manchester said he was worried about her safety now their deliveries are being moved later.
“We have lost faith in the management,” he said.
Mr Westwell began working for Royal Mail almost 10 years ago, with his daughter joining him last year.
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She said: “We work six days a week, walking 10 miles every single day. They want us to work Sundays now as well and work later. It is just not viable to do the things they want us to do.”
Miss Westwell added: “It is not safe for people to be out on the streets in the dark because we do the same loops every single day. So we are an easy target.
“Deliveries used to be earlier to avoid people being out in the dark, but now they don’t care about that. We could be finishing at 7, 8 or 9 o’clock at night if we are doing overtime.
She went on: “We have colleagues who have worked for the company for more than 40 years, but the amount of people who are now looking to leave is more than it has ever been.”
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Dom Wirdnam, who is a branch official for the CWU in Bristol, said he and his colleagues had gone to London to join the protest as they wanted to “get our voices heard”.
“We are trying to protect our jobs and Royal Mail as a service to the public. The plans that the current management have will decimate it,” he said.
“We feel very passionately. I have worked for Royal Mail for 25 years, I love the company and have enjoyed my time there.
“I will be retiring in a few years, I would like to hand on a similar job to the people who come along behind me.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appeared to rule out meeting union demands for pay rises for public sector workers to head off strikes before Christmas.
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Mr Sunak was asked whether, aside from asking the military to step in, the Government could do anything to prevent the industrial action from going ahead.
Speaking to broadcasters at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, he said: “The Government is always going to try and act fairly and reasonably.
“What I’m not going to do is ask ordinary families up and down the country to pay an extra £1,000 a year to meet the pay demands of the union bosses. That wouldn’t be right and it wouldn’t be fair.”
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He added that the Government is looking at “tough new laws” as well as resilience and contingency plans and that the nation should be grateful for soldiers giving up their Christmas.
“We’re here at an RAF base today.
“I had the opportunity to say thank you to some of our armed forces personnel because many of them are going to miss Christmas to help us deal with the disruption from strikes, whether that’s manning border posts or driving ambulances, and we all owe them an enormous debt of gratitude.”