Tag: Royal Mail

Statement – Industrial Action Update

Posted by | Oct 5, 2007 | |

Royal Mail said that official payroll figures show that the support for the Communication Workers Union strike amongst its members is weakening with 50 pct more people working than during previous national strike days.

Attendance at sites across the country varied hugely with up to 90 pct of our people working as normal in some offices and with around 35,000 people coming to work as usual during the first 24 hour period of action. This is around a third of the people due to be at work.

Normal service will be resumed from next Wednesday while 14.200 Post Offices are not affected by the strike action and are open as normal for business throughout.

Royal Mail is also pleased for the conclusion of a deal in principle with Unite/CMA, which represents 12,000 of our managers, over pay, modernization and pension reform.

Royal said that over the last few months Royal Mail has concluded agreements with managers in Royal Mail, Parcelforce, and the national network of subpostmasters – all within the 2.5 pct available for pay this year. All of these agreements have been reached without recourse to industrial action.

Royal Mail continues to talk to the CWU to try to agree a deal with them on pay, modernization and pensions that reflects the competitive challenges faced by the company.

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Apacs promotes electronic payments amid UK postal strike

Posted by | Oct 5, 2007 | |

Apacs, the UK payments association, is using the current postal strike to promote the wider use of electronic payments as firms suffer from delayed cheques.

Apacs is also encouraging consumers to make wider use of the direct debit scheme for bills.

Sandra Quinn, director of communications at Apacs, said, “The postal strike serves as an effective reminder of the benefit of direct debits. Currently, direct debits are used for 58% of all personal and household bills. They save time and effort and regardless of any external factors you can be confident your bills will be paid on time without any hassle.”

According to Apacs, the number of bill payments made by cheque has fallen by 32% since 2000.

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Business Post extends share of UK postal market

Posted by | Oct 4, 2007 | |

Guy Buswell, chief executive of Business Post, the private parcel and mail delivery group, said the postal strike beginning on Thursday could endanger the future of the mail industry if the dispute was not resolved soon.

During the strike, he said, the 6m to 8m pieces of mail which Business Post’s UK Mail subsidiary collects every night would continue to be delivered into Royal Mail depots and wait there for final delivery once the postmen and women were back at work.

Mr Buswell also said the group’s parcels business had seen a sudden slump in deliveries to consumers in the days following the Northern Rock crisis. He said there had been “a huge reduction in volumes” of parcel deliveries from companies which sell electronic goods, such as computers, over the internet.

He said the business had picked up again since, but that it showed that consumer confidence could be hit by such events.

In a trading update covering the group’s half year to the end of September, the group said the UK Mail business “continues to achieve strong growth with revenues in the period up by some 60 per cent.” The mail market in the UK was fully opened to competition in 2006 and UK Mail now has a 7½ per cent market share.

Group revenues in the half year were affected by the loss of a contract with Federal Express. That contract, worth GBP 20m a year in revenues and GBP 2m in operating profits, ended on April 30 after FedEx acquired a UK parcels business.

Mr Buswell said that the group was having success in winning new contracts, however, the loss of the FedEx contract meant that group revenues had increased in the first half by 9 per cent rather than an underlying 15 per cent.

Revenues from the group’s parcels operation were in-line with the same period of last year, as “good growth” in the business-to-business parcels operation had been offset by a decline in deliveries to consumers.

The group’s shares, which have fallen from around 480p in recent weeks ahead of the postal strike, slipped another 6p to 394p in morning trading.

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Sunday collections end

Posted by | Oct 3, 2007 | |

After 17 years, Royal Mail is set to abolish Sunday postal collections throughout the UK from October 28.

With low volumes of mail posted on Sunday the cost of providing this service is disproportionately high.

Claire Prosser, the policy executive at the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce Group, which includes Swindon, said: “As the vast majority of Royal Mail’s 115,000 letter boxes have never had a Sunday collection, the abolition of this service will have little effect on business.

“Only 50 UK businesses currently have a Sunday collection service, representing only 0.74 per cent of total volume.

“This means that it costs four times as much to handle Sunday post than items collected on other days.

“Royal Mail’s proposals may affect a minority of customers; however there are many clear benefits that abolition of this service will have.

“The reduction in Royal Mail’s overall operating costs will increase the assurance that the service can be delivered at an affordable price.

“It will also help reduce carbon emissions of approximately 10,000 ton per annum.

“Royal Mail must however tread carefully: With continued strikes, decrease in service and increase in costs, many loyal customers may lose confidence in Royal Mail, further spurring them to adopt the services of Royal Mail’s competitors.”

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