Search: Post strike talks
The mail dispute remains deadlocked as a fresh wave of strikes caused more disruption to the post - and there was a further threat of longer walkouts next month.
Thousands of members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) staged a 24-hour stoppage, manning picket lines outside mail centres across the UK in a bitter row over jobs, pay and modernisation.
Two further strikes will be held on Friday and Saturday and the leader of the union has warned the action will escalate unless there is a breakthrough.
The CWU's postal executive held off naming new strike dates as efforts were made to resume peace talks which collapsed on Wednesday night.
CWU leader Billy Hayes said there was "every prospect" industrial action will now be stepped up, while the union is still considering whether to take legal action over Royal Mail's move to hire 30,000 agency workers to deal with the backlog of mail caused by the strike as well as the Christmas rush.
The warning raises the threat of huge disruption to Christmas post unless the bitter dispute is resolved soon.
The industrial action went ahead after the failure of three days of intensive talks between union leaders and Royal Mail bosses, under the chairmanship of TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.
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Dave Ward, the union's deputy general secretary, said he had tabled a proposed deal at 10am on Wednesday which he thought would bring the dispute to an end. Speaking on a picket line in London he said Royal Mail had not responded to the proposal by 6pm on Wednesday, so the union had no alternative but to strike. "We are frustrated at the company's attitude. Frankly we don't think they want an agreement. It was a realistic proposal - if it wasn't, I am sure Royal Mail would have rejected it in five minutes instead of waiting eight hours," he said.
Mr Ward said changes being planned by Royal Mail could lead to 60,000 jobs being lost and the remaining workforce moved from full-time to part-time employment as well as "huge cuts" in services. The changes were on a scale no other worker in the country had faced, he claimed.
Royal Mail managing director Mark Higson countered that he believed the two sides were close to a deal after marathon talks at the TUC which ended at midnight on Tuesday. "We thought we had reached something that was very promising. We came in on Wednesday morning to face a new set of demands which we were in the process of responding to when they decided that the strikes were still on," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
