POSTAL services are expected to grind to a halt in Glasgow and the rest of the UK with strike action threatened by thousands of workers with Royal Mail and Crown Post Offices.

Letters and parcels were left untouched during stoppages five years ago and officials with the Communication Workers Union (CWU) this afternoon predicted a repeat.

The Royal Mail and the nation's Post Office network are now separate businesses but workers with both have agreed to strike in a row over jobs and pay next Monday. Industrial action will also be taken by posties and Parcelforce staff with Royal Mail.

CWU deputy general secretary Dave Ward said: "We are coordinating strike action across postal companies for Monday 4 November to increase the impact of the action and try and focus the minds of company negotiators.

"Post Office management is out of touch with its staff and customers over plans to close Crown offices and cut staff. The company is unfairly imposing pay freezes on both Crown staff and now admin and supply chain workers while senior managers have enjoyed significant bonus payments. These double-standards cannot continue and we hope to make progress in talks this week."

Hundreds of offices across the country are to be targeted by strikers including the Glasgow flagship site in St Vincent Street which has seen managers drafted in to try to keep it open during previous stoppages.

Other Crown Post Offices in the west of Scotland to be hit include Brandon in Motherwell and Cumbernauld, both North Lanarkshire, East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire, Paisley, Renfrewshire, Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire and Duke Street in Glasgow's East End.

Industrial action comes at a time of an ongoing row over controversial plans to to shutdown or privatise existing Crown Post Offices at Cumbernauld and East Kilbride.