On Friday, Royal Mail announces Unite members voted in favour of a pay deal for junior and middle managers, which was recommended by the union. Following a turnout of 69%, 68.4% of Unite members voted in favour of the offer.
The agreement includes a cumulative two-year package of 5.37%. Managers will receive a pay increase of 2.6% this year, backdated to the 1st of September 2019, and a pay increase of 2.7% from the 1st of September 2020.
In addition, managers, including part time managers, within this pay bargaining group and who are part of the standard Royal Mail Group Annual Bonus plan will receive a £1,000 bonus advance in December 2019. This payment will be subject to tax and NI deductions and will be deducted from any final bonus payment in June 2020.
Separate discussions are taking place for Unite-represented managers in Parcelforce Worldwide.
“We are pleased to announce that Unite members have today voted in favour of Royal Mail’s pay offer to junior and middle managers. This offer recognises the continued hard work and dedication of our junior and middle managers. Working together, we are committed to creating a strong platform for the continued success of our business.”
– Sally Ashford, Chief HR Officer, Royal Mail
If only life was so simple for the rank a file Posties who belong to the CWU – having voted in favour of strike action, there is a requirement for a mediation process which takes a minimum of 7 weeks, but probably a couple of weeks longer. However we know that the mediation process started ahead of announcing the strike mandate and as close as we can figure if mediation isn’t successful (or extended) then strikes could potentially be called around the Black Friday period.
If the CWU do call out Posties on strike, it is likely that the junior and middle managers who have just agreed a pay deal will move to the front line and be out delivering letters and parcels.
14 Responses
I have some sympathy with the posties from the info i have read…. However in a world where royal mails old core business is becoming a shadow of it’s former self, and the new model of business being one in which so many other big players already have a huge foothold and a network / setup to work it, surely this is self defeating?
Lets face it… most of the public, regardless of what they may say, are going to be more annouyed at late parcels and mail than they are going to be full of sympathy. That is life… we all support things until they negatively impact us.
So this will drive more businesses to put more parcels through RMs competitors. This will increasingly hit profits and pay and numbers will be reduced accordingly. Sadly Royal mail is no longer on a pedestal, held as a glowing beacon of delivery. It is just one of many options available to the public and businesses and by damaging it’s reputation… it will progressively become a less important one.
…. Of course saying all this doesn’t mean that those in charge at RM can go around treating staff how they like. If promises were made, then promises should be kept.
I would hate to see my postie go…. great guy.
its not surprising Royal mail has difficulty negotiating
with those that selfishly & cynically use a festival of good will and cheer to all men
that will effect the old ,ill, or lonely disproportionately
Read the full facts about Rico and what he and the board getting paid and Rico history.We had a agreement they backtracked its Royal Mail at fault not the workers or the union. They Royal Mail want to Parcelforce to go separate then it be other departments just for there greed. Its a disgrace most of public dont know the true
@Mark & Gary, what you will find is that most have a “we don’t really care” attitude. As Toby said above, when it effects us we don’t like it regardless of how much sympathy we may have with the postie.
This attitude is wide spread, many will argue about the right or wrong of how little tax the likes of eBay / Amazon pay into the UK coffers, but still carry on using them, either as a customer or seller. As seller constantly moan on here about how bad eBay is but carry on selling on there.
If a strike effects my business then I need to make sure I reduce the impact, if I have to set up an account with a competitor then I am not going to come back in a hurry.
When the strike is over and RM have lost a 500-1,000 business customers there is little point in arguing who is too blame, the damage has been done.
Why would the public care about the truth when all they care about is having
a christmas card delivered
As the wife of a postal worker of over 35 years, I can tell you that the decision to strike is not one that comes easy. Postal workers always considered themselves to be part of a community service and would spend time ensuring that the people on their delivery rounds were ok – this included taking milk and provisions to the old, ill or young mothers with babies when the conditions were bad. Over the years we have seen this service eroded into a profit focused business that penalises postal workers for standing still for more that a couple of minutes [through tracking their ] and wants to turn all roles into part time to avoid having to pay as much in pensions payments. The business also wants to break up the postal deliveries from the parcel deliveries so that it will make it easier to sell off the profitable parts of the business, thus getting the management [Rico Back] huge bonuses. This is a man who systematically devastated parcel services in the European arm of Royal Mail and then got a £6m ‘Golden Hello’ for simply transferring to another part of the same business. He also managed to drop the value of Royal Mail shares with a negative statement about the business, then bought huge amounts of these shares when they were are rock bottom – setting himself up nicely for a good profit when the prices start to rise again. Where is the justice in this? All the postal workers are asking for is for the business to honour the agreement that was legally agreed last year – they are not asking for anything new, or for massive pay rises, all they want to do is to safeguard a service to the community that, once lost, will never be brought back. If you value the Universal Service that allows you to post an item in Lands End to go to John O’Groats and expect it to get to the door of the recipient within a couple of day then you need to support the post men and women who are fighting for YOUR postal service.
It saddens me to see seemingly intelligent people advocate what is blatant greed and corporate bullying simply because that is ‘the way things are now’.
Workers rights are being eroded everywhere and your postal worker is currently on the front line and in the line of fire.
A full time Postie has some paid sick pay, maybe 4 weeks paid holiday and earns approx 25k which is probably just enough for a family man to have a simple life; small mortgage, small car and 1 holiday a year, nothing too extravagant.
This ought to be the bare minimum every full time worker should expect, how much more do our rapacious overseers want to steal from us!!
Royal Mail was pravitised in 2013. It use to be a service run by the State. It is now a business run by shareholders. How many of the practices of a state run enterprise has changed. None. CWU has the cheek to talk about bullying. The business is run by the union. They can go on strike if they like. The business is already struggling financially. If care is not taken it will go the way of other great British institutions and Amazon will acquire it for a pound
When royal mail next year reduce staffing due to reduced work will the posties want to strike again? When its probably going to be their actions that caused the reduced work in the first place?
Us business owners don’t have a problem with royal mail company. We don’t have a problem with the management. We do have a problem with the staff trying to cost us money and, in some instances, cost us our livelihood.
The staff, not the management, will be who we blame.
You want to involve us in your action against our will. How much sympathy do you expect?
By the way folks from what I am hearing elsewhere the competitors are pleased with the actions of the royal mail workers. Looking at increased business which helps secure their jobs.
Hopefully they won’t be looking to take on any ex-RM staff any time soon.