A backlog of more than five million letters will be sorted in Oxford after postal workers ended their strike today.

About 380 workers had refused to work at Royal Mail's Cowley sorting office in Garsington Road following the suspension of two colleagues on Monday, July 16.

The strikers said the suspensions were not explained to them, and voted to continue their unofficial picket until a review of the situation tomorrow morning.

But a truce between Royal Mail bosses and representatives of the Communications Workers' Union (CWU) was agreed at the Cowley Workers Club, Between Towns Road, at 11.45am yesterday. Noel Fay, spokesman for the CWU, said: "My own opinion is that there will be five or six million letters to sort.

"We're going to get our hands dirty and try to get to some kind of normality by the end of the week."

Mr Fay said a Royal Mail manager from out of the area and a union official would now oversee disciplinary action in the wake of the two suspensions, and that the matter would be resolved within three weeks.

Mike Devanny, Royal Mail area general manager, said: "We are relieved to see commonsense has prevailed as this unlawful industrial action has benefited no-one."