BOLTON'S postal services and the town's college could both be hit by all out strike action within the next few weeks.

Union members in the Royal Mail are furious at plans to close down the town's mail distribution centres. They have warned that they are "heading towards all out strike action".

And lecturers at Bolton College in Manchester Road are holding a strike ballot in protest against the use of agency staff instead of a regular part time lecturers.

At a meeting of the postal workers' Communication Workers Union on Sunday, members of the Bolton and Bury branch passed unanimously a resolution opposing the closure of the depots at Wingates and Lostock.

In addition, the Union called on Royal Mail to re-evaluate its decision to move the depot to Crewe and look at developing the existing site or moving to new premises within the Bolton area.

Despite Royal Mail bosses' assurances that there will be no job losses among the 300-strong staff, workers say they are not convinced.

Staff have been told that they will be retrained and redeployed, and that there will be no need for redundancies.

However, one worker who attended the weekend meeting said: "There are no realistic plans to prevent all the staff here being found new jobs.

"We all feel that we are facing the dole.

"Feeling is running high, and it is very likely that we will be looking at taking all out strike action.

"We are desperate. We all have mortgages, wives and families, and there are no jobs around in the area."

Ian Young, Branch Secretary, added: "Royal Mail have, over the last three years, persuaded postmen and women to move to the Wingates site from all over the North West. They have told the staff that Wingates was not going to be re-located as recently as last month.

"Our members have moved houses, got their children into new schools, left their friends and families behind in the towns they came from, only to be told now they will have to up root again.

NATFHE, the college lecturers' union which was at the centre of a seven-week long dispute with the Bolton College management in 1995/96, say agency staff cannot give the same commitment to students and are often underqualified and inexperienced.

The union claims part time lecturers, some of whom have been with the college for years, face the threat of redundancy and re-employment without basic rights such as sick pay and pensions.

A NATFHE spokesman said: "Our students deserve properly qualified lecturers who can support them throughout their courses and our members deserve basic employment rights as part time staff.

"We are balloting to make our protest against casualisation and to send a warning to college management. Our members will decide what action to take at a branch meeting after the ballot result is announced," he added.

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