UK Royal Mail staff return to work after strike

Thousands of Royal Mail staff have returned to work against a backdrop of better relations between management and the Communication Workers’ Union, bringing to an end a two-week unofficial postal strike.

Royal Mail is confident that it can make controversial changes to working practices, including phasing out the second daily mail delivery.

Postmen and women at the Mount Pleasant and Nine Elms Sorting offices in London went back to work yesterday morning, with others around the capital following later. Coventry, Chelmsford and Warrington were among the first postal offices outside London to stop striking.

“The return of workers is well under way,” said the Royal Mail. It predicted that all staff would have resumed normal duties by today.

The wildcat industrial action started in west London on October 17 and subsequently spread across the city and to other parts of the UK. It was backed by more than 20,000 workers.

More than 25 hours of talks between union leaders and Royal Mail management at weekend had shown few signs of reaching a solution. But the eleventh-hour intervention of Billy Hayes, CWU general secretary, and Allan Leighton, Royal Mail chairman, broke the deadlock and a “return to work agreement” was unveiled at 3.30am yesterday.

Royal Mail said it would take two to three weeks to clear the backlog of mail, which totals “tens of millions” of items. About 4,200 of London’s 13,000 post boxes had been sealed to stop the backlog from growing further. Royal Mail said most of the boxes would be open again by today.

Royal Mail and the CWU claim to have won concessions. Royal Mail said it would not take action against strikers unless they had used violence or threatening behaviour, and that all staff would be treated equally, “with fairness, dignity and respect”.

The union agreed that staff would work flexibly to clear the postal backlog and would accept managers’ allocation of over-time.

The agreement is likely to speed up the abolition of a second daily mail delivery, part of Royal Mail’s plan to restructure its business and cut 30,000 jobs over three years. The Royal Mail said ending the strike had “broken the stalemate” on this issue and would make it easier to introduce changes to working practises.

The CWU said its main concern now was that the changes would be “discussed and not imposed”.

Royal Mail management and CWU officials will meet today at conciliation service Acas to discuss reaching a national agreement on the move to a single delivery – and resulting redundancies – by December 10. The talks had been scheduled for yesterday, but were postponed to allow the negotiators to catch up on sleep.

Although the union said its relations with Royal Mail had improved, the truce will be tested by the talks. The level of the London living allowance remains a sticking point; Royal Mail says it does not have the funds to pay more but the CWU plans to pursue the issue.