Six days of strike action are planned as the parcels pile high and deliveries face delay
December 1, 2022 9:34 pm
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - SEPTEMBER 08: Striking Royal Mail workers gather on a picket line outside Camden Town Delivery Office as they stage a 48-hour industrial action in an ongoing dispute over pay in London, United Kingdom on September 08, 2022. The two-day walk out involves 115,000 postal workers with the CWU union demanding an adequate pay award that covers the current cost of living increases after the management imposed a 2% pay rise on employees. (Photo by Wiktor Szymanowicz/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
CWU workers for the Royal Mail are staging 19 days of strikes (Photo: Anadolu/Getty Images)
In the battle for the future of the Royal Mail between management and union, both sides have shown a willingness to escalate the conflict.
You can see the result: a mountain of parcels, crowded delivery depots, and undelivered mail piled in lorries and trailers. This December, the cut-off date for the last Christmas post is unclear.
Postal workers have complained that there is barely room to move about (Photo: Supplied)
Your card or parcel may not be guaranteed to reach its destination in time, with six days of strike action to come before Christmas Day.
Royal Mail’s initial pay offer was inflammatory – and management’s decision to pay £400m to shareholders last year was highly questionable, given “difficult” forecasts at the time about trouble ahead.
As for the CWU, it has targeted the crucial pre-Christmas delivery window to create maximum disruption and get noticed by the public, since postal strikes take longer to cause problems than, say, industrial action on the railways.
Royal Mail does need modernisation in order to compete with parcel rivals willing to undercut it on pay and working conditions. The business says it could lose up to £450m this year following the drop in pandemic deliveries.
Yet management must take responsibility for failing to take the 140,000 workforce along with its plans to modernise. Some staff fear the Royal Mail becoming a “gig economy” employer.
The best way out of the mess? A decent pay rise linked to more reform is needed – to help posties caught in the cost of living crunch, while also ensuring that the Royal Mail has a viable future.