邮政员工大罢工 英国3千万封信延时

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Striking postal workers manned the picked line outside the south London mail center from dawn. A stake they say jobs pay and very existence of Royal Mail.

"You know, I've got a family to support. You know, I've got a house, a mortgage to pay for. You know, this is not what I want to do."

The Communication Workers Union claimed 78,000 delivery and collection workers took part in today's strike. Yesterday, 40,000 mail center staff and drivers walked out. Royal Mail now has a backlog of 30,000,000 letters. These pictures were taken inside a south London sorting office today and show 45 cages of unsorted mail containing around 120,000 items.

Evy Marshall celebrates her 11th birthday this weekend. Her usual piles of cards are unlikely to arrive.

"I've got to feel really upset, because they can't get here and I would a kind of feel, I would feel really forgotten, but I also feel quite disappointed that none of my cards can get here."

The dispute centers on a 2007 pay and modernization deal. The CWU accused Royal Mail of reneging on the agreement. Today Lord Mandelson set efforts to reach a settlement for being held up by a troublesome fuel.

"It's a minority of areas and branches of the CWU that are dragging their feet in this. They are the ones who are falling out with management for whatever reason, real or perceived, and it's amongst those localities that we've got to bridge these differences of opinion and get them signing up or resigning up to the original agreement that they put together two years ago."

The union says it's willing to hold talks that they cast to try and break the deadlock. The Royal Mail insists the strikes have to be abandoned before that can happen.

"Well, I think, again, we've said that the use of mediation could be very useful in the future. I think we really need the strikes called off before that can be really productive. And as I said, we believe we have a good basis for that in the talk that took place earlier in the week."

Royal Mail has drafted in 13,000 temps and scores of managers to try to clear the delays. But with the CWU planning a further three-day walkout from next Thursday, it appears to be a backlog that can only get bigger.

Simon Newton, Sky News.