Royal Mail reach tentative pay agreement

The Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union said Friday they had tentatively agreed on a pay deal for 160,000 postal workers.

The union had threatened to strike this month if a deal had not been reached.

Royal Mail, a subsidiary of Consignia PLC, said the agreement would raise basic pay by 6.9 percent by April 2003, including a 2.1 percent hike backdated to Oct. 1.

The union’s postal executive will meet Tuesday to decide whether to recommend the deal to members.

Issues of job security and compulsory layoffs are still being discussed, the John Keggie, the union’s deputy general secretary.

“This is a landmark deal,” said Mick Linsell, Royal Mail’s managing director for service delivery. “It provides for real increases in basic pay while at the same time allowing increases to be earned for efficiency gains in sorting and delivering mail.

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A deal aimed at averting post strikes will give Royal Mail workers a basic weekly wage of #300 by 2003, union leaders claimed today.

The Communication Workers Union will meet next week to consider recommending the deal to 145,000 postmen and women, which would head off the threat of industrial action.

Deputy general secretary John Keggie said today that the agreement committed postal group Consignia to a #300 basic wage for all postal workers by October 2003.

The issue of job security and compulsory redundancies is still being discussed but Mr Keggie said he believed an agreement would be reached before next week.

“I am pleased with the deal we have hammered out.”