95.9% Yes Vote for more Royal Mail strikes

Category: Operations
95.9% Yes Vote for more Royal Mail strikes

CWU members have returned a Yes vote for more Royal Mail strikes, with 95.9% in favour of further industrial action on a turn out of 77.3%.

While the Union haven’t turned the Yes vote into an announcement of strike dates, it’s pretty certain that they are coming. Ahead of the strike result, the Union warned that a new wave of disruption will paralyse the industry in the weeks to come

Following two ballots and 18 days of strike action, Royal Mail bosses were confident they had exhausted the spirit of their workforce.

But judging by the enthusiasm proudly displayed, it’s clear that posties are still standing up for themselves in a dignified, determined way.

This should signal to Royal Mail’s top brass that they should drop their efforts to turn Royal Mail into a glorified Uber and begin treating workers with respect – everybody needs real negotiations to end this dispute, not a new wave of disruption.

– CWU

Royal Mail have enough troubles and deserve a certain amount of sympathy for their International Delivery woes which are costing a fortune following the cyber attack earlier this year. They’ve rejected a demand to pay a ransom of some $80m (around £66m), and are still putting workarounds in place. Mostly services are running, although slightly slower with different tracking to normal, but it’s still not possible to despatch items at a Post Office if they need a customer declaration.

However, it’s hard to have as much sympathy when it comes to the strikes as the company appear to have done little to pacify the Union and boss Simon Thompson appeared evasive when he appeared before Parliament, so much so that he’s being dragged back for a second inquisition which will likely be less pleasant than the first round of questioning.

Royal Mail are quite frankly running out of money and parent IDS are reluctant to dig into the GLS treasure chest to bail out the UK postal network. The only ray of hope is CWU rep Dave Ward reporting a conversation with Royal Mail Chair opening the door to a fresh perspective and ‘new process’ to negotiations. But he insists any such talks come with strings including what he described as ‘management attacks’ on CWU members.

We are disappointed that the CWU members who took part in the ballot have voted in favour of taking further industrial action.

Royal Mail remain committed to resolving this dispute and want to agree a pay and change deal for our people.

– Royal Mail

While there’s frustration at Royal Mail at the new strike ballot and inability to come to agreement, the CWU are pretty upbeat at the fresh ballot result. Businesses will undoubtedly continue to desert Royal Mail around strike days if there are more to come, and many who have already left will be reluctant to return in the near future if not forever.

The background chatter is that even the offer on the table might become unaffordable in the face of more strikes and a lesser offer coupled with more redundancies will only give fuel to the CWU and prolong this bitter dispute.

2 Responses

  1. If the current offer is becoming unaffordable how can they expect more, they’re like turkeys voting for Christmas.

    Royal Mail should cut the universal delivery obligation down to one letter delivery a week, the workforce left after sacking anybody who refuses new contracts should be sufficient to run that.

    Everything bigger than a letter can be moved to Tracked 24/48 and delivered by newly hired workers who don’t want remember the days of getting up early, walking around for a couple of hours with a few letters and ending in the pub by 11am.

  2. Royal Mail workers are well paid for the industry, in an increasingly competitive industry I can see Royal mails view that it is unaffordable. Royal Mails staff are causing a huge effect on 1000s of businesses and if they are not careful there will be widespread redundancies, it is in the staffs interest for Royal Mail to be profitable. I don’t agree with holding your employer to ransom by striking, if you feel you deserve more money then find a better paid job.

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