Tag: UK

The government today urged Royal Mail management and unions to settle a pay dispute which threatens to escalate into a national postal strike.
The Department for Trade and Industry warned that a strike could do severe harm to the long-term prospects of the postal service.
But a spokesman for the department insisted that ministers saw the dispute as a “commercial matter” and would stay out of it for as long as possible.

Postal workers are to be balloted on industrial action in a dispute over pay, threatening the first national strike for seven years, it was announced today.

Around 160,000 members of the Communication Workers’ Union will vote over the next few weeks on whether to stage a series of walk-outs in a row over this year’s wage offer which the union claimed had more “strings” than the Philharmonic Orchestra.

The CWU said the Royal Mail was being disingenuous by claiming that the latest offer was worth 14.5% over 18 months.
Officials said the only definite money on offer was 3% from October and a further 1.5% next April.
The union said it was being asked to agree to 30,000 job cuts, which it said would “destroy” postal service.

Royal Mail made a loss of £480 million on its monopoly business last year, heightening fears that the price of stamps could be forced up again and that the postal group is on course for a another clash with its regulator.

Details of the losses will be presented today to Postcomm, the regulator in control of pricing and in charge of the four-year programme to allow competitors into the postal market. Postal executives are expected to seize on the scale of the losses to demonstrate the danger of setting access charges too low. Postcomm is considering how much Royal Mail should be allowed to charge rivals to use its network. It has suggested a fee of 11.5p per letter, against the 28p cost of a 1st-class stamp and 19p for second 2nd-class mail.