There’s some good news for any retailers still using Royal Mail, the Union has suspended strike days for two weeks. Royal Mail and CWU also have planned talks at Acas on today, but that is not the reason strikes have been suspended!
Indeed, the CWU had planned for a possible interruption to strike action, on Friday announcing two additional strike days, determined to continue the disruption if days already planned had to be called off.
- Pay – Saturday 12th November 2022
- Change – Monday 14th November 2022
This was met with an outpouring of pain from many Royal Mail workers who have lost thousands in pay due to the industrial action, many of whom are in dire financial striates which any pay rise, even a massive one, will do nothing to correct in the short term. In fairness, some welcomed ratcheting up the pressure even more determined not to bow to the company.
To halt the action in advance of the new strike days, Royal Mail have gone back to their form from 2019 when they won a High Court injunction ruling the then CWU Strike Ballot invalid. This time not only do the CWU have two Strike Ballots, one for Pay and one for Change, but they both appear iron clad mandates… So, instead, the Royal Mail have been nit-picking and written to CWU to highlight numerous material concerns with the formal notification of planned rolling strike action.
The problem the CWU hit was for the functional action strikes, where a high level of detail for which functions will be impacted – naturally this is more complex than a simple all out Strike and Royal Mail (who naturally didn’t help the CWU with the level of detail required) have managed to stall the current action. This won’t stop the CWU from moving forward with strike action over the Black Friday week still on the schedule.
We want an agreement and Royal Mail Group now have 10 days of talks to prove they do too – or we will call further action.
– CWU via Twitter
Where this leaves you is a 10 day breathing space without strike days to find alternative carriers for Black Friday week, and for the Christmas period where it’s likely lack of agreement will result in even more strike days being called. In the mean time, with a bit of luck the stuff I’ve ordered off eBay from some of you might actually arrive and Posties will get paid for going to work. Strikes will commence on the 12th if an agreement can’t be brokeerd by ACAS in the mean time.
