Royal Mail workers walk out as company gets tough

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Royal Mail workers accept pay deal

With the official mourning period for Her Majesty The Queen over, having cancelled strikes the CWU members who are Royal Mail workers walk out again this Friday and Saturday, the 30th of September and 1st of October.

There is no end to the strikes in sight and Royal Mail have fired up the CWU even further by invoking clauses in their CWU agreements to modernise without the blessing of the union.

The agreement entitles Royal Mail to give notice on certain undertakings in the event that CWU takes national scale industrial action. To date, CWU has taken national industrial action on three dates – 26 August, 31 August and 8 September 2022, and has announced two further strike dates on 30 September and 1 October 2022.

– Royal Mail

As you might expect, the CWO are furious and after this weekends’ strike we expect further Royal Mail workers walk out dates to be announced.

Royal Mail management has tried to blindside the CWU to directly inform employees that their job security, working standards and union representation is under imminent threat.

It couldn’t be more obvious to thousands of workers that this represents a new step in a plan to turn Royal Mail into something more like Uber. But this country’s postal workers are made of stronger stuff than the people currently running Royal Mail. They won’t accept such an historic institution being turned into a gig economy employer. They won’t be cowed into submission and will continue fighting to defend decent jobs and British industry

Dave Ward, General Secretary, CWU

Royal Mail say that due to the continuing industrial actions as Royal Mail workers walk out, they will take the following steps without further union consultation:

  • Speed up decision making on a daily basis – currently CWU Reps in units across the company negotiate and allocate overtime, annual leave and the hours that people work
  • Trial and introduce new technology more quickly – Royal Mail has invested tens of millions of pounds in new technology to improve the customer experience, but has been restricted from using the information to improve performance and safety
  • Revise attendance policy to address persistent instances of short term absence
  • Reduce complexity and cost – They will review the commercial and IR agreements governing the current CWU structures in Royal Mail to ensure arrangements are fit for purpose
  • Remain competitive and retain our position as the best employer in the industry, with the best pay, pensions and conditions

Royal Mail has also written to CWU to propose that talks should be taken to ACAS (the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) in a further attempt to find a resolution and prevent more strike days that see Royal Mail workers walk out.

It may become even harder for strikes to take place in future years as the Chancellor announced in the September mini-budget that legislation will be introduced to require all unions to put pay offers to a member vote, to ensure strikes can only be called once negotiations have genuinely broken down.

It’s also worth noting that with five strike days taking place by the end of this week, Posties have lost a weeks’ pay which would be equivalent to 2% of their annual salary. The longer the strikes go on and the more day’s Royal Mail workers walk out the less any potential pay agreement will make a difference to their household budgets and the more they will suffer. No one is winning.

One Response

  1. Amazon promised to make allowances for all this but this morning I got a tracking rate warning. Weasel words. For those of us who HAVE to use large letter post this is a terrible time.

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