Planned Christmas strikes are set to go ahead, after Royal Mail and the CWU failed to reach an agreement to Christmas back on track and tackle the postal backlog. Next Day pre-Christmas delivery just won’t happen with the postal service this year and it’s impacting the entire industry.
The Union claim to have offered a peace deal, which involved accepting a 9% pay rise but demanding job security, and negotiations on the direction of the company. Royal Mail are having none of it insisting that any pay rise has be to tied to modernisation and changes to workers terms.
This means that the Royal Mail Christmas strikes will go ahead including on the 23rd and 24th of December.
The Royal Mail Christmas strikes have had far reaching impacts across the delivery landscape in the UK. Some are saying that you might not receive your Christmas cards until February, such is the backlog of mail that has built up.
Next Day Pre-Christmas deliveries impacted by carrier
Naturally just about everyone are now using alternative carriers, some are even delighted as they’ve found prices are cheaper, but even other carriers are impacted by the Royal Mail Christmas strikes. The net result is that almost all carriers are warning that Next Day Pre-Christmas deliveries are unlikely. You may wish to revise your Christmas promises to customers as trying to get a carrier to deliver on Christmas Eve if you despatch on the 23rd appears an increasingly unlikely dream for 2022.
You can forget Royal Mail and Parcelforce as a lost cause, but here’s what’s happening with the other big 3 UK carriers:
Evri
Evri say that they are delivering over three million parcels a day but delays are creeping into the network and you’ll find it impossible to book ad hoc collection – you’ll need to drop off at a parcel shop. Evri even have staff from head office out on the road delivering parcels!
DPD
DPD have also paused ad hoc collections and their network is totally swamped with parcels. However while it’s a challenging time for DPD, they are on top of the situation and have a published list of delays by postcode – ranging from a 1 day to 3 days.
Yodel
Yodel are another carrier for whom booking an ad hoc collection appears to be off the table currently. Again they are swamped to capacity but like DPD they have a published list of expected delays to parcels by postcode, with delivery expected to take a “couple of extra days”.
