Royal Mail faces strike on pay and jobs
The Royal Mail is facing its first national strike in 11 years after the Communication Workers Union (CWU) said its members had voted in favour of industrial action.
The CWU said on Thursday that 77.5 percent voted in favour of action due to Royal Mail’s “below inflation pay offer” and its plans to reduce the workforce by around 40,000, or around 27 percent, by automating mail-sorting processes.
“A series of walkouts will now be held by about 130,000 CWU members unless new talks can lead to a breakthrough in the dispute,” the union said.
The CWU members range from post men and women to sorters in distribution centres, and the union said 66,064 of its 127,000 members balloted voted for action, with 19,190 voting against. More than 20,000 employees are not members of the union.
The Royal Mail said it had to modernise to prevent the business from failing and that the only way it could improve pay, protect pensions and deliver customer service was by modernising.
“We urge all our people at Royal Mail to work together to meet these challenges and to refrain from any industrial action that would hurt both our customers today and our prospects for a successful and profitable business in the future,” Chairman Allan Leighton said.
The Royal Mail is fighting private competition from Business Post, Dutch mail company TNT NV and others after losing its 350-year monopoly on postal services in January last year.
It also lost key business when the government began paying benefits such as state pensions directly to claimants’ bank accounts rather than through post offices.
The growth of email, text messages and the purchase of tax discs and television licences over the Internet have also dented profits.
Last week it emerged that Royal Mail Chief Executive Adam Crozier had received a bonus of up to 370,000 pounds last year, taking his total package for the year to over 1 million pounds.
