The CWU are gearing up to reballot Royal Mail workers over alleged management bullying and Royal Mail backing down on the Four Pillars agreement agreed with management. Since Rico Back took over, unrest has increased as the Union claim he tore the previous agreement up within a year of it being signed. The CWU is organising gate meetings at Royal Mail depots around the country on the 25th of February and while working conditions, pensions and job security is important a new Royal Mail pay deal also matters.
Now Royal Mail have put forward a three year Royal Mail pay deal and say they want to get into detailed talks about their proposal and what Royal Mail wants from the union for the business. The Royal Mail have already indicated they will make a loss this year and need to roll out changes fast to save the business.
Part of the plans which Royal Mail say is essential and will please online sellers is the proposal for a second van delivery. This would see 7,000 dedicated van delivery routes from around 300 delivery offices by 2023. This is to get ecommerce deliveries purchased late in the evening delivered to consumers the next working day. At the same time, recognising the decline of letters, they want to cut around 2,000 ‘walks’ which will mean 2,000 less posties delivering letters on a daily basis.
We have today put forward a proposal to CWU, including a three-year pay deal.
We want to get into detailed talks about our proposal and what we want from the union for our business. pic.twitter.com/cd0jEdQtdp
— Royal Mail News (@royalmailnews) February 7, 2020
Whether the CWU will accept the Royal Mail pay deal and plan is anyone’s guess. Last year the CWU were spitting mad when Royal Mail won a high court injunction blocking strike action due to voting irregularities and the CWU have today announced that Dave Ward, Terry Pullinger, Sally Bridge and Davie Robertson have been re-elected as Union executives unopposed. There’s no change at the CWU so it remains to be seen if Royal Mail proposals represent a big enough shift in their stance for the deal to be attractive to them.
“Royal Mail has today put forward a proposal to CWU. It includes a six per cent three-year pay deal for our CWU-grade people. This means an increase, including the first hour of the shorter working week, of more than 16 per cent between 1 April 2018 and 31 March 2023.
We have said that we can only afford to do this if we deliver on the Plan we announced to our stakeholders in May 2019. To do this, we need to change more quickly than before.
Our proposal underlines our commitment to being the best employer in our industry. It maintains our policy of no compulsory redundancies for frontline operational colleagues. We will not become a gig economy employer. We will not introduce zero hours contracts for permanent employees. Nor would we look to outsource Royal Mail’s core operations.
We want to invest £1.8 billion in the UK. We need to turnaround and grow our UK business. This means the further automation of parcels, including the deployment of three new automated parcel hubs. Most of our parcels are currently hand sorted, just as they were in the Victorian period.
We will introduce a second van delivery in most parts of the country. This is about capitalising on the growth of “night owl” shopping. We will do this by introducing around 7,000 dedicated van delivery routes from c300 delivery offices by 2023. Delivery of letters and small parcels will remain unchanged through our existing Delivery Office network
UK letter volumes are expected to decline by 75 per cent in the 2004 – 2024 period. So, over the next four years, we plan to carefully reduce the number of daily walks from c58,000 to c50,000. Alongside this, we want to invest in the upgrading of the infrastructure that delivers the Universal Service. This means £115 million invested in upgrading our facilities, and £400 million in new vehicles to improve the fleet.
Our plan is about a modern, contemporary Universal Service. It is about what our customers want. It is about ensuring we remain the best employer in our industry. We hope to convince the union to support us to grow Royal Mail.”
– Shane O’Riordain, Managing Director of Regulation, Corporate Affairs and Marketing, Royal Mail
13 Responses
If Royal Mail are planning to reduce walks will this lead to redundancies and if so will they be voluntary?
So more vans means more pollution and job losses. What is the problem with them using bicycles with panniers or trailers? More jobs less cost and fit workers.
People aren’t interested in sending letters any more. People are interested in ordering items online and getting them delivered asap. It’s time Royal Mail staff realise they have serious competition out there who can deliver what the customer wants. Wake up and smell the coffee RM staff….its time for change
@LJ
Electric cars are worse then petrol.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/334059
Mining for lithium is destroying the sea bed.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02242-y
Union as got to open there eyes and do whats best in long run for workers and company. No gud striking only lose more in wages and customer . No 1 will b force into jobs they cant do its b volunteers and older staff will b offered redundancys.
Would be nice send old staff home ,all they do keep going sick and getting help because they too old to finish their round, sometimes manager creates easy duties for them, as soon as you suggest retirement you get blame age discrimination, greedy old age once was nice but now out of date posties.
What a great article (not)….. Big headlines about a Royal Mail pay deal…. Then drones on about what everyone already knows and says nothing about a pay deal!!!!!
A bit like saying about how good a film is before it’s been made……
Nothing to see here!.. ?????