They argued that the business was losing customer confidence because of the continuing dispute and risked becoming increasingly uncompetitive as it already paid its staff up to 40% more than cheaper rivals. Chairman Keith Williams has said that the firm is losing £1m a day as parcel volumes fall and efforts to modernise the business stall. The company is encouraging people to post items as early as possible to avoid disruption. It is the first of four days of industrial action, with walk-outs also taking place on 31 August as well as 8 and 9 September. “After industrial action takes place, we’ll be increasing our network capacity and using additional resources to assist with getting services back to normal,” says Royal Mail. Delivery staff are not yet involved on these days, so some people may still receive items.
The CWU’s pro-company deal resulted in a bonfire of terms and conditions, the destruction of thousands of jobs and imposition of a two-tier workforce, with all new hires employed on inferior pay and benefits. Bid documents produced by Kretinsky cite the benefits to investors of reduced labour costs and increased flexibility delivered by the union. The bitter dispute involved the union calling for the resignation of chief executive Simon Thompson and Mr Thompson saying the company was losing £100m a day during strike action. No international parcels and letters will be delivered on strike days with services resuming the following working day.
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The long-running dispute revolves around pay, jobs and conditions at the privately-owned firm. The union’s additional demands, including restoring quality of service and alternate Saturdays off for delivery workers, bear all the imprints of a PR exercise aimed at promoting the takeover, with promises of jam tomorrow. The deal also includes later starting times for deliveries which, Royal Mail said, would respond to greater demand for next-day parcels, improve quality of service and create greater growth capacity. The CWU is the latest of several unions to ballot for strikes in recent weeks as the cost of living soars. Customer Service Points will be closed on strike days – meaning people who have requested to drop off or pick up parcels from there must wait to collect them. Royal Mail said it will continue to accept, prioritise and deliver as many Special Delivery items on strike action days “as our resources allow”.
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Postal workers will not take planned industrial action on 16 February, after it was blocked by a legal challenge from Royal Mail. The government’s emergency Cobra committee will hold its second meeting of the week later to discuss how to minimise the impact of the wave of industrial action. “It’s meant we’ve had to staff up to protect our customers,” she told the BBC, with three times as many requests for advice on delivery windows from shoppers than usual. Pip Haywood, managing director of online card company Thortful, has calculated that each day of action is costing the firm up to £50,000 a day. Watch Make Sense of Strikes on iPlayer and find out more about why people are striking and whether industrial action works. In September, Ofcom said it is considering allowing Royal Mail to ditch Saturday deliveries for second class letters as part of the consultation.
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Porters, cleaners and caterers at Royal Liverpool Hospital walked out for more than two weeks. On 24 November, Royal Mail said it had made its “best network engineer vs software engineer and final offer”, and accused the union of “holding Christmas to ransom”. While Yodel also said that deliveries are taking longer to some areas , externalbut did not specify why. It also said it would prioritise the delivery of Covid-19 test kits and medical prescriptions. Letters will not be delivered and some parcels will be delayed, the Royal Mail has warned.
The company has undergone a major overhaul which saw it axe thousands of jobs from 2022 as Royal Mail was impacted by industrial action. “But those in charge of Royal Mail need to wake up and realise we won’t allow them to destroy the livelihoods of postal workers,” it said. The CWU which represents more than 115,000 postal workers at Royal Mail, said it still wanted a negotiated settlement with Royal Mail Group and would “continue to the next amazon stock is already here engage the company to that end”. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) said “the livelihoods of postal workers” were at stake.
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- The dispute between Royal Mail and staff represented by the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has officially come to an end after months of bitter exchanges.
- Inflation, the rate at which prices rise, is at a 40-year high of 10.1% and expected to surpass 13% later this year.
- Royal Mail also wants to end the extra payments that postal workers get for doing things like driving bigger trucks.
The company says it has improved its offer to workers, including more generous redundancy terms and a profit-sharing scheme. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) confirmed the strike action would not go exchange rate us dollar to mexican peso ahead. Staff will no longer strike on Thursday, 16 February, after Royal Mail challenged the way the industrial action had been called, citing a “legal error”.