A YOUNG postal worker on strike for the first time in Sheffield, South Yorkshire said today’s walkout by the CWU was “phenomenal.”

Twenty-seven-year-old Rohan Kon was cheered by tens of thousands of workers and their families last month when she spoke at the Durham Miners’ Gala, which this year honoured key workers.

Speaking to the Morning Star from the picket line she said: “It has been a phenomenal day.

“It was really daunting at first. Lots of people were nervous.

“You don’t take strike action lightly or want to do it. But it has come to this and we are going to stand up for ourselves.

“We know what we are worth. We are going to stick together and show what we mean to each other.”

She said picketing had been organised in shifts, and “lots of people” signed up to join at 4.30 am.

“There were already people stood waiting for their T-shirts, hi-vis jackets and placards,” Ms Kon said.

“It was pissing down yesterday but today the sun is shining – they say the sun shines on the righteous.

“We’ve had 60 or 70 people across the morning, and support has come from the public, our families and friends.”

She said that postal workers have stood with rail and BT workers who were recently involved in industrial actions – and they had joined the CWU picket in solidarity.

Ms Kon said her mother had also baked a lemon cake for the strikers.

She said: “It’s a very empowering environment. We all know we have one another’s backs.”

Ms Kon was picketing the Royal Mail office which serves Sheffield city centre – her delivery patch.

“The managers have gone in,” she said. “But not a single worker has gone in and not a single piece of mail has come out.”

The workers will be out again on Wednesday.

Ms Kon said that union had done two separate ballots “because all the way through, Royal Mail has tried to tie pay to changes, which is absolutely wrong.”

She added: “We want a rise at the level of inflation. We worked all through the pandemic and made them £178 million profit.

“Now we’re worried about how we’re going to get through winter. People are worried about how they’re going to feed their kids.

“Royal Mail refused to talk to us at first, then they offered us 2 per cent. Obviously we said no, so they imposed the 2 per cent on us.

“They said that if we accepted all these changes like reduced sick pay, flexible hours, later starting times, they would up the rise to 5.5 per cent, but that’s with a performance-based bonus which was impossible to achieve.

“We’ve got four strikes planned purely about pay and a no strings pay rise.

“We don’t just want it. We need it if we are going to go on making this great public service survive.”