Consignia, the postal group, finally had something to celebrate last night with an outline deal on pay and indications that its regulator would back down on the introduction from next month of further competition in postal services.
Leaders of the Communication Workers’ Union confirmed that they had reached broad agreement with Consignia over wages for their 145,000 members.
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Read MoreConsignia’s biggest cus-tomers have backed plans to end the Royal Mail group’s monopoly in an attempt to prevent any watering down of proposed regulation to introduce competition. The Mail Users’ Association, representing business customers, had avoided endorsing the regulator’s plans, fearing they could harm mail deliveries by pushing Consignia further into financial crisis. However, the group has now ended its neutrality and de-cided there is a bigger risk to service levels if Consignia were allowed to continue without competition.
Read MorePostcomm yesterday denied it was ready to retreat on the issue of introducing competition into Consignia’s mail monopoly. “We are in listening mode, and haven’t yet had a response from Consignia,” a spokesman said. “If someone came up with a very good reason why proposals have to change then we might have to say something, but we are still in a consultation period.”
Read MoreThere are signs that the two sides could be edging towards a deal that could resolve the pay dispute and remove the threat of nationwide industrial action. The Communication Workers Union may settle for an agreement that gives its members less than the 5 per cent annual pay increase they had originally demanded. It could, at the same time, push for a deal over a longer period. Consignia, which has already raised its offer to a basic rise of 2.1 per cent – plus another 0.7 per cent with conditions attached – was considering whether to revise its offer again in order to avert a damaging strike.
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