Tag: Royal Mail

The government was told tonight to scrap its plans to end the Royal Mail’s monopoly on delivering letters next year, as the unions joined forces to oppose greater competition in the postal sector. Labour promised in its election manifesto to keep the post office in the public sector, but since then the trade and industry secretary, Alan Johnson, has floated the idea of a sell-off to workers, on the model of the retail company John Lewis, whose permanent staff are all partners in the business. The government was told tonight to scrap its plans to end the Royal Mail’s monopoly next year, as the unions joined forces to oppose greater competition in the postal sector. Tonight the TUC voted unanimously to oppose liberalising the postal market with Amicus’s Derek Simpson declaring “a last post for UK jobs” and Communication Workers Union general secretary Billy Hayes saying any partial sell-off would be “a privatisation in my book”.

Royal Mail has today confirmed that its new pricing system, Pricing in Proportion (PiP), which means mail will be charged by size as well as weight, will come into force on 21 August 2006. The date was selected following feedback from a number of Royal Mail’s customers. An extensive communications campaign, explaining the new pricing system, will take place prior to the change.