UP to 95 per cent of the North-East’s 18,000 postal workers will strike over the next two days, union leaders warned last night.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) is staging two 24-hour walkouts today and tomorrow, crippling mail deliveries acRoss the country.

After hopes of reaching a last-minute deal collapsed last night, the CWU, which nationally expects as many as 120,000 members to join the dispute, has also warned of further strikes in coming weeks.

About 42,000 mail centre staff and network drivers are due to stage a 24-hour strike today, followed by a 24-hour walkout tomorrow by 78,000 delivery and collection workers.

Dave Ward, the union’s deputy general secretary, said Royal Mail had no intention of resolving the dispute and seemed intent on “sidelining”

postal workers’ concerns.

Members voted by 3-1 in favour of a national strike in a ballot complaining that jobs were being axed, pay cut and working conditions worsening.

Royal Mail condemned the decision to go ahead with the “wholly unjustified” strikes and said it was willing to continue negotiating.

The company said it made a “reasoned and sensible” proposal yesterday to avert immediate strike action and provide a period of calm in the run-up to Christmas.

Mr Ward, who led the union’s negotiators during marathon peace talks, said he believed progress had been made before a letter sent to the union yesterday by Royal Mail managing director Mark Higson scuppered any chances of a deal.

He went on to claim that every time progress was made in negotiations, “external forces” had deliberately attempted to undermine the chances of a deal – singling out three men – Mr Higson, Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier and Business Secretary Lord Mandelson.

“We are absolutely clear that the real truth behind this dispute is that Lord Mandelson clearly feels it is pay-back time because we defeated him on privatisation,” he added.

Mr Ward said he appreciated the inconvenience the strikes would cause, but said the union genuinely believed it had “no alternative”.

However, Royal Mail said it had agreed a set of words with the union during talks that officials had agreed to take to the executive meeting yesterday.

“Royal Mail finds it outrageous that the CWU leadership can accuse it of reneging on that agreement, which we were expecting the union to rubber-stamp and we remain happy to sign – and we challenge the CWU to do the same.”

Lord Mandelson said: “The company and the union must work together to find a longlasting solution and make the progress on modernisation that Royal Mail desperately needs to survive.”

Business minister Pat Mc- Fadden said the Government believed Royal Mail had to change, needed to modernise and “could not afford to stand still”.

The industrial action is expected to cripple deliveries and cause a huge backlog of mail, only two years after the last national postal strike.

Business leaders in the region last night spoke of their concern about the impact of the strike.

Ross Smith, head of policy at the North-East Chamber of Commerce, said: “The strike is going to cause disruption for businesses, many of whom still rely on Royal Mail for sending out orders, getting payment in and for all kinds of other important postal items.

“If it forces business to look at other systems rather than Royal Mail, it will only damage the position of Royal Mail.”