The London committee of the Communication Workers’ Union has called for Royal Mail workers to be ballotted on national strike action over changes to their pension scheme. The union was apparently not consulted on the changes announced last week, which Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary, described as “a complete shock”.
Royal Mail have said that the current final salary scheme would be closed to new members. Final salary schemes guarantee the level of pension payments, which are calculated in proportion to earnings while working, but they are exceedingly expensive to run: Royal Mail is currently subsidising its workers’ pension contributions to the tune of £730million a year. RM Chief Executive Adam Crozier said that “around 93% of our mail volumes come from business customers and they should not have to pay for the increased cost of our pensions – and if we ask them to do so, more of them will simply go to the competition.”
