Royal Mail chief appeals to delivery staff to accept 14.5% pay increase
Royal Mail’s 160,000 delivery staff have been offered a record 14.5 per cent pay deal in an attempt to push through controversial productivity improvements.
Allan Leighton, chairman of the state-owned postal operator, wrote to staff at the weekend – appealing to them over union negotiators’ heads with a promise to raise all salaries to at least £300 a week.
He said the deal would add between £33 and £38 a week to the pay packets of most staff, equivalent to 14.5 per cent over the next 18 months. Yesterday Royal Mail insisted the offer was only the same as had already been put on the table during negotiations with union representatives.
However, Mr Leighton’s direct appeal may antagonise negotiators and comes with a number of productivity demands, including the long-standing drive to introduce a single daily delivery and changes to the transport network that will involve some voluntary redundancies.
“We have been talking to the unions and we hope to continue to do so,” said Royal Mail. “We just wanted to make clear what was on the table and how vital it is that the conditions are met if we are to turn the Royal Mail around and restore it to profitability.”
Mr Leighton has a record of making such direct appeals to the workforce.
Last year he famously criticised his managers and union negotiators for getting stuck in “treacle” during similar talks.
The Communication Workers’ union said it planned to negotiate to secure a better offer. Union officials have been aiming for a £300-a-week minimum wage, but Dave Ward, the newly elected leftwing deputy general secretary of the CWU, has described the deal as having “more strings than the Philharmonic Orchestra”.
London representatives for the 32,000 postal workers in London have already voted for an industrial action ballot in response to a Royal Mail offer to increase London weighting by £100 a year.
Royal Mail’s attempt to win changes in working practices for a pay increase above the norm has parallels with the local government strategy during the fire service dispute, although the fire service is unlikely to see waves of redundancies. Although the fire service dispute ended last month, it is not yet clear that the bulk of firefighters have come to terms with employer demands for a wholesale change in practices.
Billy Hayes, the head of the CWU, is a leftwinger and close associate of self-styled “awkward squad” general secretaries such as Mick Rix of Aslef and Andy Gilchrist of the Fire Brigades Union. But he has attempted to build a partnership approach with Royal Mail.
