Tag: Royal Mail

The former Conservative minister Tim Yeo today calls on the Government to give away Royal Mail as part of a pounds 4bn plan to safeguard the future of the organisation.

Mr Yeo, the Tory MP for South Suffolk and an ex-environment minister in John Major’s government, says the proceeds should be re-invested in the business to help motivate its workforce, protect rural post offices from closure and plug the hole in its pension fund.

Under the Yeo plan, Royal Mail’s shares would be split into four. A quarter would be given to employees, each of whom would get shares worth an average of pounds 5,000, a quarter would be allotted to Royal Mail’s pension fund and a quarter would go into a trust fund set up to prevent branch closures. The remaining quarter would be sold to the public in a flotation, providing a pounds 1bn cash injection to finance future Royal Mail investment.

Protracted negotiations between Royal Mail and the union representing 160,000 of its employees come to a head later today, with the Communication Workers Union warning it will ballot members on strike action unless agreement is reached before the weekend on pay and working conditions.

The CWU and management have been in talks all week after the union backed away from an earlier threat to ballot workers last Monday. At issue is a pay deal worth up to 3.9pc and a range of other disputes including new automated sorting machinery and the transfer of some of the Royal Mail’s post offices to private sector partners.