Tag: UK

The main postal union yesterday threatened to take industrial action if Allan Leighton, chairman of the Royal Mail, failed to offer a more attractive pay deal.

Mr Leighton has tabled a 14.5 per cent pay rise over 18 months, but the Communication Workers Union said that the rise was worth only 4.5 per cent because most of it was linked to productivity rises.

Dave Ward, deputy general secretary, said: “At some point it may be necessary for us to ballot on industrial action. The time is fast approaching when we cannot sit back and keep being told that our members are the most valuable asset in the industry without delivering real, up-front investment in this asset.”

The CWU said that the pay proposal was “smoke and mirrors, the business’s way of replacing their so-called treacle with jam tomorrow or, in their case, probably never at all”.

Mr Leighton angered union leaders by going over their heads to write to all 180,000 employees to offer the wage increase. The chairman said he was frustrated at the pace of progress over the pay talks.

A deal, which is crucial to the future of Royal Mail, is due to be agreed by October.

Royal Mail is delighted to be supporting the Young Business Entrepreneur North East Business Executive of the Year 2003 award for the third consecutive year.

It is common knowledge that successful businesses of all sizes need to change and adapt in order to remain in business.

Indeed, Royal Mail Group is now in the middle year of a radical three-year renewal plan aimed at returning our business back to profit, following record losses. We have already made excellent progress and recently announced the first improvement in trading performance for five years. Foundations have been laid for a turnaround and put the company at the start of the road to profitability and in a strong position to compete with our competitors.

Royal Mail is heading for a fresh clash with the industry regulator after warning Postcomm that its plans for giving rival operators access to Royal Mail’s local delivery network will cost the state-owned organisation £650m in profits over the next three years.
Senior executives say the loss-making business could be forced to raise the price of letters and other postal products or curtail the universal service unless Postcomm revises its proposals.