UK Mail and Postal Union in last-ditch talks to avert strike

Royal Mail and the postal workers’ union, the CWU, are to hold last-ditch, face to face talks today in an attempt to prevent the first national strike for seven years being called later this week.

The two sides, who met on Friday, have come under government pressure to settle the pay and productivity dispute amid evidence that the 160,000 postal workers are voting substantially in favour of action.

The talks – which could continue tomorrow – come as the Commons trade and industry select committee is preparing to mount an inquiry into CWU claims that Royal Mail has exaggerated its losses to justify plans to axe 30,000 jobs.

With the ballot result due on Thursday, the CWU said the company’s pounds 611m pre-tax loss last year included pounds 449m set aside for more than 15,000 redundancies when only 2,400 people actually left the operation.

Dave Ward, the CWU’s deputy leader and architect of the union’s industrial strategy, said the unions’ figures would suggest that the two sides were not that far apart. The union is demanding “up front” pay increases of 8% while Royal Mail has offered 4.5% over 18 months – and 10% when local offices agree to productivity changes such as ending the second daily delivery.

Royal Mail, which insists its audited figures are accurate, claims that 16,600 have left the industry, but among those figures it can identify only 5,500 voluntary redundancies. The disparity is accounted for by outsourcing work and the loss of the contract for collecting television licences for the BBC.

The confusion has been enough to prompt the Commons committee to extend a planned inquiry into plans by the industry regulator, Postcomm, to open the postal market to competition and its financial impact on Royal Mail.

Martin O’Neill, the committee’s chairman, has said Mr Ward’s allegations would now be examined, while Lindsay Hoyle, a committee member, said it was right to investigate the matter.