Tag: Royal Mail

Groups opposed to the closure of post offices are staging a national protest today as part of a campaign to keep open threatened branches. Union leaders, politicians, countryside and pensioners’ organisations will join forces to call on the Government not to press ahead with plans to shut 2,500 offices. The campaign aims to secure the future of the postal network offering a range of government products and services including a Post Office card account. A rally in Westminster will be followed by a lobby of MPs and events across the UK. Gordon Lishman, director general of Age Concern said, ‘We are

pleased that the Government has started to wake up to our concerns about the future of post offices.

The Royal Mail’s decision to close its final salary pension scheme to new entrants has drawn a furious reponse from unions and raised the spectre of strike action to oppose the move.

The London Divisional Committee of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) called on the CWU’s Postal Executive to “mobilise the union’s membership to oppose these plans and to build a campaign to ballot the membership of the whole of Royal Mail Group for industrial action.”

It also blasted a proposed share scheme for Royal Mail’s 190,000 employees, worth up to 5,300 stg per worker over five years, as a “backdoor route to privatisation.”

CWU divisional representative Martin Walsh said: “Our members will not tolerate the closing down of the pension scheme and/or the reduction of benefits to any current or future members, and unless Royal Mail group withdraws from its position on pensions or the Phantom share scheme, industrial action looks inevitable.”

Fellow CWU official Mark Palfrey added: “It is our view that the Labour Government has masterminded the unnecessary imposition of competition, backdoor privatisation and the undermining of all Postal services.”

Royal Mail is in talks with Government authorities throughout the UK about their postal voting needs during the national assembly and local elections this spring.

A range of postal voting services are available to local authorities and national assemblies to help them with their time-critical election campaigns, with a range of delivery and return services that meet their specific needs. These include pre-sorted election returns to a specified selection, such as by ward or constituency, separation of election mail from normal postal items as well as timed deliveries and the return of postal votes on the polling day evening.

Royal mail has also developed a best practice guide to postal voting, which includes advice and information on the design and production of an election mailing through to distribution and returns as part of a four-stage plan to managing the process. This is available at www.royalmail.com/postalvoting