Royal Mail hit targets but still face threat of strikes

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Royal Mail have had a good start to their year hitting both their First and Second Class posting targets, although narrowly missing the target for Special Delivery.

The regulatory First Class mail target of 93% was exceeded with 93.3% of mail delivered by the next working day and the Second Class mail target of 98.5% achieved with 98.7% of mail delivered within three working days. The Special Delivery target of 99% was narrowly missed with 98.6% delivered but this target does not include businesses customers of Royal Mail buying the service using their account.

Royal Mail is still the only UK mail delivery company required to publish Quality of Service performance against delivery targets every quarter and has the highest Quality of Service specification of any major European country.

“Royal Mail operates under some of the most demanding Quality of Service standards in the whole of Europe, so it is only right to pay tribute to the hardworking postmen and women who make this happen six days a week at more than 30 million addresses across the UK. We remain the only UK delivery company to publish our Quality of Service performance and we are proud to do so.”
– Sue Whalley, Chief Operations Officer, Royal Mail

The only real blot on Royal Mail’s horizon is the continuing threat of strikes by the CWU. We understand that the latest deadline giving is the 6th of September before the CWU consider scheduling stike action if sufficient progress hasn’t been made in talks with Royal Mail.

The last full scale strike by Royal Mail workers was called by the CWU back in 2009 and the last time they almost came to strike action was 2013. Since privatisation, Moya Greene Royal Mail’s Chief Executive has managed to keep the unions in check and the post moving.

It’s notable that in year’s past the CWU arranged postal strikes every two years around Christmas time. It was only in 2009 that the public grew tired of union petulance and for the first time didn’t generally appear to support strike action. Times changed and people just wanted their Christmas cards and presents delivered and today with low or no pay rises for most workers in both the public and private sector I’d be willing to bet that generally there’s little appetite for a postal strike outside the union and possibly even within it.

4 Responses

  1. I think you will find a very big appetite for strike action. Pay cut, increase in workload, change in hours (two hours later) and pensions stolen. While the company made 712 million profit.

  2. I hate to say it but I’m a posty of 27 years and a job I was proud of but not now
    The unrealistic targets the managers put on its workers are just silly now and I won’t be long before I will be forced to leave one of the last great British companies
    Our walks are 13 miles a day in all weather and it just to much for many of us.
    The sad fact is all I ever here is ( why is my post so late) of people and it seems the public blames us for this sad fact , the fact is we all preferred early mornings finishing at 12 just like our customers want but the management want later finishes not ealyier
    And guess who people will blame, the poor postie

  3. Chris you seem to have a bit of an axe to grind with postal workers. Not happy with the service you received during your eBay empire building ? You write of Moya Greene keeping the unions in check and of their petulance and speculate of lack of public support. Do you not like to see workers exercise their democratic right (and through democratic means i.e. voting) to push for improvements in their pay and condititions ? Strike action after all is a last resort and comes only after negotiations have failed. Workers do not receive pay during strike action so therefore are loathe to take it.

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