Strike ballot looms as Royal Mail postal talks break down

Union bosses were meeting today to discuss the way forward after talks aimed at resolving a dispute over postal workers’ pay ended in failure.

Leaders of the Communication Workers Union met Royal Mail managers throughout the day at the conciliation service Acas in a bid to settle the dispute which could lead to the first national strike in seven years.

But the meeting ended without agreement and the union will now press ahead with a ballot of 160,000 postal workers for strikes.

Ballot papers will go out next week and the result will be announced next month.

The union will have to give a week’s notice of any industrial action.

Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier urged the union to take the dispute to formal mediation.

Mr Crozier said the union had been demanding a weekly wage of £300 for postal workers and he said that figure was now “within its sights”.

He went on; “The message from most postmen and women is – don’t blow it. The Royal Mail has a long-standing agreement with the CWU that either side can call for mediation.

“We expect the union to honour it and we are waiting to hear from them.

“We have made a very strong offer for a company losing £750,000 every day, but the Royal Mail will not emerge from even the threat of a ballot unscathed.

“It is simple: if postmen and women walk out, customers will walk away and competitors will walk in.”

The union has accused the Royal Mail of being “dishonest” by claiming that its latest offer was worth 14.5% over 18 months.

Dave Ward, deputy general secretary of the CWU, said as he left Acas that he would be reporting to the union’s postal executive today to decide the next move.

The union will have to decide whether to go to mediation in a bid to resolve the dispute but will press ahead with the timetable for the strike ballot.

The CWU has claimed that the pay offer contained “more strings than the philharmonic orchestra” and said the only definite money was 3% from October and a further 1.5% next April.

The union has also hardened its opposition to redundancies, warning that the postal service was being “destroyed” because of plans to cut 30,000 jobs.

The Royal Mail, which lost £611 million last year, has insisted that the offer was worth 14.5% although it was linked to some productivity changes, including the introduction of single mail deliveries.

The offer would cost the service £340 million.

The last national strike by postal workers was in 1996, also over pay, when deliveries were crippled by a series of walkouts.