POSTMEN and women in York and North and East Yorkshire are urging businesses in the region: "Don't blame us for late deliveries."

Paul Clays, north-eastern regional secretary of the Union of Communication Workers, representing 1,200 postal workers in the YO postcode area said today: "Postmen on the ground are getting the blame for an issue which should be laid at the door of the management.

"We work for a company which has imposed new working methods and we are taking the flak."

"It wasn't postmen in York who suggested doing away with a second delivery. The new system could end up with people being made redundant. We have been bullied into it."

He said that originally, postmen had voted against the cost-cutting scheme to reduce two deliveries to one but management continued with its proposals.

"But in a second ballot they voted for it because the management were saying that if the problem was not addressed, the competition would come in and take their work away. It was short-termism."

Mr Clays said he was glad that the business community was taking notice that once they had a first-class service and now they did not. "The problem is that until it slaps them in the face they don't do anything about it."

Mr Clays, who has had talks with York MP Hugh Bayley on the issue, said he could not understand Royal Mail's attitude.

"Any business that doesn't listen to its customers is a fool," he said

It was no solution for Royal Mail to suggest that customers could collect their own mail. "That's just making matters worse," he said, adding that he would welcome an opportunity to be invited to the meeting called by business leaders at the Mansion House on February 13. Adam Sinclair, chairman of the York Chamber of Trade, who is organising the meeting, has assured the union that business people are emphatically not blaming postmen for the late deliveries.

"We completely recognise that all this is not their fault. We are very aware that they are as disgruntled as we are."

But for diplomacy's sake he would be asking Royal Mail if it would object to the presence of the union at the meeting. "The object is not to be confrontational, but genuinely to achieve a positive resolution for the sake of both the Royal Mail and the business community."

Updated: 10:15 Thursday, February 05, 2004