Royal Mail strikes caused by modernisation changes (UK)

Royal Mail, in it’s application to the Postal Services Commission for relief from the impact of Industrial Action, said that a number of factors had caused a drop in quality of service in 2007 but the underlying cause was industrial action brought on by essential changes to make the business more efficient. It said the changes formed part of the loan it had secured from government to modernise the business.

The application timetabled the impact of events caused by national, rolling, and wildcat strikes but said that it was not possible to “identify every small event that contributed to the wider degradation in quality of service during the year as a result of work to rule and go-slow activity”.

It said that settling the industrial dispute on unsatisfactory terms had not been an option and in finding a solution to the dispute, the transformation of Royal Mail and the funding secured by government had to be protected as much as the long term interests of Royal Mail and it’s customers.

Royal Mail said that as well as industrial action over pay and conditions, it had also experienced industrial action over delivery office closures which again, were part of an overall plan to make the business more efficient. In addition, the new EC legislation relating to 56mph driving speed restrictions for 7.5 tonne vehicles, which became law in January 2008, required the restructuring of Royal Mail’s network operations and duty patterns in delivery, resulting in changes to the start time for over 100,000 delivery postmen and women. It said the CWU had used the changes as both a bargaining and propaganda tool during the dispute. Royal Mail, in it's application to the Postal Services Commission for relief from the impact of Industrial Action, said that a number of factors had caused a drop in quality of service in 2007 but the underlying cause was industrial action brought on by essential changes to make the business more efficient. It said the changes formed part of the loan it had secured from government to modernise the business.

The application timetabled the impact of events caused by national, rolling, and wildcat strikes but said that it was not possible to "identify every small event that contributed to the wider degradation in quality of service during the year as a result of work to rule and go-slow activity".

It said that settling the industrial dispute on unsatisfactory terms had not been an option and in finding a solution to the dispute, the transformation of Royal Mail and the funding secured by government had to be protected as much as the long term interests of Royal Mail and it's customers.

Royal Mail said that as well as industrial action over pay and conditions, it had also experienced industrial action over delivery office closures which again, were part of an overall plan to make the business more efficient. In addition, the new EC legislation relating to 56mph driving speed restrictions for 7.5 tonne vehicles, which became law in January 2008, required the restructuring of Royal Mail’s network operations and duty patterns in delivery, resulting in changes to the start time for over 100,000 delivery postmen and women. It said the CWU had used the changes as both a bargaining and propaganda tool during the dispute.

Royal Mail admitted that industrial action had a direct impact on quality of service on each day that it occurred, both of full day national strikes and via targeted action which removed a specific part of the operational pipeline. However, it said that no amount of contingency planning or other efforts could have prevented this. It said that it was not reasonable to expect Royal Mail to pay strikers overtime following industrial action either, and therefore clearing the backlog of mail meant that quality of service was affected for some weeks after the dispute.

Royal Mail said that the most significant incidents in terms of duration and number of people involved of regional industrial action had been at Oxford, West of Scotland, London and Liverpool and that as these incidents occurred immediately before the national strikes and/or during the recovery periods it was not possible to quantify their impact separately. Flooding at Sheffield/Hull, the South West and West Midlands had also created problems.

Royal Mail said there had undoubtedly been an impact of the industrial relations dispute on staff morale and commitment, with the deployment of tactics such as work to rule and go slows. These behaviours have had an impact upon Royal Mail’s ability to recover from the days of IA and to achieve the scheduled standards during this period.

With reference to the settling of this dispute, it said that a resolution was not reached by 4th September and that the period of calm was extended until 9th September when, despite the best efforts of the Royal Mail negotiating team, it became clear that a settlement would not be reached at that point and talks broke down. Royal Mail said it had no alternative but to commence deployment of the planned Network 2007 changes by executive action (i.e. without a national enabling agreement with the CWU) in order to ensure Royal Mail’s compliance with new EC restrictions on driving speeds for 7.5t tonne vehicles, which became law in January 2008. Royal Mail accordingly served employees with notice of planned changes to their duty structures, although it had planned to deploy these changes in the summer of 2007 via a national agreement and with a positive industrial relations climate. However, having delayed deployment in the hope of achieving a national agreement, Royal Mail had no option but to proceed with these changes, so that they were fully embedded in advance of the busy Christmas period.

Royal Mail said the periods during and after the IA were a particularly challenging time, especially for front line operational managers during what had been the most difficult industrial relations climates in Royal Mail history – many of those managers working 10 hour days, 7 days per week and postponing their holiday to keep the operation running.