Around 115 British postal workers have walked out on strike in demand of a higher pay offer amid soaring inflation.
Members of the Communication Workers' Union (CWU) picketed post and sorting offices across Britain on Friday.
The union has rejected a pay offer that management say amounts to up to 5.5 per cent, insisting they want a rise that "covers the current cost of living" from the company that was privatised between 2011 and 2015 after nearly 500 years of state ownership.
Inflation, driven by the energy crisis following Western sanctions on Russia over its special military operation in Ukraine, has topped 10 percent in the UK and is predicted to hit between 13 and 18 percent early next year.
CWU General Secretary Dave Ward told his members they were "doing a great job" and said the union was "happy to have talk with the company."
But Ward accused Royal Mail of being "less than honest about what's really going on" with workers, saying executives were in talks with investment companies in Luxembourg about a "potential takeover".
Postal worker Hannah Carrol, picketing outside the Whitechapel post office in east London, told the BBC that her colleagues could no longer make ends meet on their basic wages.
"The price of everything's going up, people are having to do more and more overtime," Carrol said. "People are running themselves into the ground in order to feed their families and working seventy hour weeks just to make ends meet — it's ridiculous."
Further strikes are set for August 31 and September 8 and 9.