Tag: UK

Royal Mail Group yesterday raised the stakes in its dispute with the regulatorby claiming it may default on its debt if Postcomm does not back down over the tight price controls it proposed last month.

The announcement came as the mail operator reported half-year, pre-tax operating losses of Pounds 542m after exceptional costs compared with an operating loss before tax of Pounds 1.1bn for the last full financial year.

Royal Mail, the newly renamed postal group, will today set itself on a new collision course with unions, as it fleshes out the details of an employee incentive programme, which will reward workers with “shares” in the business.

Allan Leighton, chairman, will launch the so-called “phantom share” scheme. Unions, however, will argue that the action could pave the way for a full or part-privatisation in a few years’ time. They will question why the scheme is specifically linked to the creation of shares, rather than an arrangement pegged to a straightforward productivity bonus.

Mr Leighton and the Government have both pledged that there will be no privatisation of the state-owned postal group.

Postal workers were today expected to vote in favour of strikes in a dispute over the sale of the Royal Mail’s cash handling business to a private firm.

About 3,000 members of the Communication Workers Union have been balloted on industrial action in protest at plans to sell the business to Securicor.

The union fears that jobs and working conditions will be hit if the move goes ahead and is expected to name dates for strikes later in the week if there is a Yes vote.