Author: Archive

Senior Royal Mail executives have been trained to deliver mail, drive security vans and work in post offices in readiness for the 24-hour postal strike in London.

The managers, who earn up to £80,000, will be doing the jobs of staff who earn less than £200 a week.

They have been trained to give out pensions and deal with bonds and tax discs.

Managers will also distribute special delivery letters and parcels.

Regular first and second class letters will be left undelivered until the strike by 30,000 members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) ends.

The decision by Royal Mail to abandon trains in favour of road transport was bitterly opposed by the Department of the Environment.

In a private letter to the leader of the rail network’s biggest union, the Environment minister Lord Whitty registered his dismay over the move, declaring it was in contradiction to government policy.

As the postal market slowly opens up, exploitation of loopholes in the Reims agreement is on the increase. Only a truly liberalised market will deter firms from bending – or breaking – the law. David Reed reports.

Direct marketers do not often think about Reims. Except when ordering champagne, that is, when they may prefer Epernay-based Moet et Chandon to Reims-headquartered Louis Roederer.

Yet the Reims agreement drawn up by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) has a significant bearing on direct marketing. The goal for the UPU was to stamp down on ABA remailing – the preparation of direct mail in one country for shipping to a second, only to be remailed back to country of origin.

It may seem an arcane practice. But remail used to allow direct mail campaigns to be sent for a few pence per item, rather than the 17p achievable using postal discounts in the UK. Yet post-Reims, there is a growing threat of loopholes and grey areas being exploited to undermine the benchmark price of domestic postage.