Royal Mail condemns CWU threat of further strike action

Royal Mail is disappointed that, despite a four week “period of calm” to allow talks to take place, the Communication Workers Union continues to ignore the stark challenges facing the company and has announced they will call further strikes. The CWU’s decision is in spite of Royal Mail offering the union a short term resolution to the dispute, within the amount of money available for pay this year and at no extra cost to the company, as well as a longer term solution which we believe is in the interests of our people, our customers and the future of business.

During the talks we also made it clear to the CWU that our clear aim in consulting on pensions is to protect our existing people’s pensions as far as possible and not increase their contributions – while the union wants to keep the scheme open to new recruits, even though they know it will disadvantage the postmen and postwomen who already work for the company.

Royal Mail has also offered that any postmen and postwomen affected by changes in their starting time because of new EU transport legislation will keep their early start allowance for as long as they continue in their current job even though they will be starting later. Our aim in making this offer is to ensure the postmen and postwomen affected do not lose money as a result of the change – but the union is opposed to this offer.

The union’s stance on such issues does not reflect the views and interests of the vast majority of our people but rather the interest of activists within the CWU. We will be talking to our people over the next few days as we decide how to make progress on these issues

We have now been negotiating with the CWU over pay and flexibility since March 2007. Royal Mail can no longer delay the next steps in modernizing the business to enable it to compete on an equal footing with other operators and will now begin to make the changes which have been discussed with our people and our trade unions for many months. It has become clear during this time that certain elements within the CWU are determined to drive on with this dispute irrespective of the damage it is causing to our people, our customers and the future of Royal Mail.

Royal Mail would like to thank both the TUC and ACAS, both of which have been involved in our talks with the CWU over recent weeks. As ever, we remain willing to meet with the union at any time.

Royal Mail has a unique opportunity in its history to invest in its service and improve its efficiency and competitiveness as a result of the GBP 1.2 billion funding made available by its shareholder, the Government, through a commercial loan. It is time now to grasp this opportunity on behalf of our customers and our people – Royal Mail is already losing business because our costs and therefore our prices are too high and our business customers are choosing to go elsewhere.