POST Office staff from St Helens' Bridge Street branch are striking this week, with the office operating on skeleton staff.

Staff from large Crown Post Office branches across the country - around 300 branches in total - were taking action on yesterday (Monday), today (Tuesday) and Christmas Eve.

Carl Webb, regional secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), said: "Crown are losing offices, putting jobs at risk, and the pension scheme is under threat.

"The Crown offices have been whittled down - there used to be thousands. They are slowly but surely being closed down and franchised, put at the back of newsagents.

"People are losing decent jobs, with good terms and conditions."

He added: "We have been putting forward ideas to nurture and develop the business - such as offering additional services or running it like the French model, a people's bank, not-for-profit - but in the meantime the business is being run down.

"We want to negotiate for the future of the business, for jobs and to protect our pensions - all of which are at risk.

"Our members would not be striking and losing days' pay if these issues were not important to them. Crown could have prevented these strikes by entering into negotiation, but they haven't.

"The majority of the staff are women - some of them single mums - they don;t want to lose pay, but feel it's important."

Carl said the strikers in St Helens received a lot of support from the public.

He said: "The people in St Helens were fantastic. Members of the public came to join us outside, coming to chat, giving them Christmas cards. We were even serendaded by a chap with a tuba!"

On its website, the Post Office told customers that nearly all Post Office branches were open, despite the action called by the CWU.

It says all Post Office branches will be operating business as usual on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (December 21-23) and stressed that the strike action does not involve Royal Mail employees and that there is no change to latest recommended posting dates.

Kevin Gilliland, Post Office group network and sales director, said: "We are pleased to say that over 99 per cent of our 11,600 branches are open and serving customers as they do throughout the year.

"On both days of strike action this week, the vast majority of our directly managed branches have opened for business - and all will be open as usual on 21, 22 and 23rd December.

"The Post Office plays a vital role in communities all over the UK and the changes we are making support our commitment to keeping these services widely available into the future.

"Our progress is clear - over the last four years, we've dramatically reduced our losses and need for government subsidy, at the same time as modernising nearly 7,000 post offices, adding more than 200,000 extra opening hours each week, and becoming the largest UK retailer open on a Sunday."