Postal Branches
Dear Colleagues,
CWU AND ROYAL MAIL GROUP AGREEMENT
We are pleased to announce that CWU and RMG have reached an agreement for the
national deployment of USO Reform and how we move forward the equalisation of new
entrants’ pay, terms and conditions.
This agreement also confirms Pay 2026 and relaunches the Rebuilding Royal Mail Part 1 &
2 agreements – that will now be delivered in full with the confirmed ongoing involvement and
support of the UK Government.
The agreement (full copy attached) has been unanimously endorsed by the CWU’s Postal
Executive and the key points are set out below.
USO Reform
• It has been agreed to set aside the ODM and in acknowledging the lessons learnt
from the pilot sites and feedback from our members – a new delivery model (2026),
based on the union’s heavier and light delivery model will now be rolled out nationally.
• The new delivery model introduces 3.5k new walks, 10k walks being switched to
heavy and light and 6k part time to full time uplifts to support the 4 into 3 structure.
• The agreement reaffirms the importance of job security for our members and there
will be no compulsory redundancies from USO Reform and MTSF will apply to
support all employees through change.
• The agreement includes comprehensive and very robust processes and safeguards
that have been put in place at local level for pre-deployment and post-deployment
reviews.
• The new processes are specifically designed to support local employees,
representatives and managers being able to have a greater say and influence over
how USO Reform will be deployed – with the ability to utilise their local knowledge
and experience within the overall parameters set. This includes local representatives
and employees having a major influence over how to fix any issues that may arise.
• The need to have in place a fully resourced office prior to deployment and to ensure
that manageable workload, quality of service and USO coverage is being achieved
has been prioritised. This will be supported with strict reviews at various stages and
no surplus can be confirmed until this criteria is being met on a regular basis.
• The company has agreed that critical to the successful deployment of USO Reform
is the need to deliver a quality of service improvement plan that delivers on the
promise to put postal workers and customers back at the heart of everything we do.
The union and the Select Committee (confirmed in writing) will continue to hold Royal
Mail to account on these crucial issues.
• The company has also agreed that critical to the successful deployment of USO
Reform will be the reset of Employee and Industrial Relations. A plan for this reset
will be published in the next two weeks.
• The agreement sets out the benefits for employees of the new model which will
increase the number of Saturdays off for full time and part time employees as well as
the opportunity for earlier finishes on a Saturday, subject to local factors and current
duty patterns.
• A new delivery site incentive scheme will also be introduced for each office in
conjunction with the roll out of USO Reform.
• To move forward the commitment to introduce new ways of working, a pilot will be
agreed as part of the roll out of USO Reform and we will encourage offices to
participate in this pilot and come forward with ideas that can be of benefit to
employees and the company going forward.
• There is a comprehensive full deployment agreement which covers all aspects of how
USO Reform will be deployed and you will find this at Appendix A of the attached
agreement. The full agreement will be explained and you will see how it provides
comprehensive safeguards and protections for our members.
Equalisation of new entrants’ pay, terms and conditions
• The agreement acknowledges the need to refresh our approach to equalisation and
confirms a first step and a process that will lead to the next step and the plan to
achieving equalisation following the next formal review which will take place no later
than January 2027.
• The first step ends the practice of Royal Mail recruiting full time staff on 40 hours per
week and commits the company to only employ new full-time staff on 37-hour
contracts.
• The first step also reduces the pay differential for new entrants by increasing their
pay rise by 1.75% over the 3% for employees on the old contracts.
• The first step also provides additional measures that are designed to support
retention of employees.
Pay 2026
• Branches will be aware that we had already agreed a 3-year pay deal with a reopener
clause should inflation be above 3% or below 2%. This reopener clause was also
due to take into account the financial position of the business at the appropriate time.
Therefore, rather than delay a pay rise we have agreed a 3% pay increase to be
introduced quickly and backdated to the 1st April and if the actual average CPI for
January, February and March 2026 is above 3%, the difference will be considered for
payment following successful deployment of USO Reform.
Relaunch of the Rebuilding Royal Mail Part 1 & 2 Agreements
Royal Mail have reaffirmed their commitment to delivering in full all aspects of these
agreements and crucially the UK Government has agreed to monitor and support progress
going forward. This reflects the assurance the new owners gave to employees and the UK
Government at the time of the takeover.
Ongoing Government Involvement and Select Committee Scrutiny
Branches will be aware that because of the support of our members and the influence of the
union, the Government intervened through its tripartite meetings and separately the all party
Parliamentary Select Committee has scrutinised Royal Mail’s quality of service failures. We
can all take encouragement from the fact that the ongoing involvement of the Government
has been confirmed and the Chair of the Select Committee has also confirmed, in writing,
that they will continue to scrutinise the need for Royal Mail to significantly improve quality of
service going forward. We will explain the importance of this at today’s National Briefing and
in our subsequent engagement with reps and members. As a result you will see that the
agreement confirms that we will now launch a joint campaign with the company to achieve
a fairer regulatory environment and address the exploitative labour models that our
competitors utilise to undercut Royal Mail.
We are confident that if this agreement is confirmed it will pave the way for serious
discussions with the Government on why it is in national interest for these issues to be
properly addressed.
Next Steps
We all know that for a number of years there has been major problems with customer service
failures and a managerial ethos that was installed by the previous board and that has never
really changed, the combination of which has led to continuing chaos in the majority of our
delivery offices. The Postal Executive is firmly of the view that the best opportunity to
significantly improve quality of service and finally change the managerial ethos is by
supporting this agreement and move forward with the continuing scrutiny and involvement
of the Select Committee and Government.
It is now imperative that all Branches, Representatives and members have the opportunity
and time to fully consider this agreement properly - not only on the basis of how we have
moved the company significantly on all the key issues – but also in its wider context around
why USO Reform is necessary and why we must shift our focus to changing the role of
Ofcom and create a level playing field with our competitors.
Delivering change will always be difficult but we are clearly in a stronger position to support
our members under the terms of this agreement.
Finally, we will ensure full engagement with all of our representatives and members on these
issues prior to a membership ballot and the approach and timetable for this will be issued in
due course. This commences today with a National Briefing on Wednesday 15th April
followed by Local Reps Briefings and direct written communications with our members and
at the appropriate point, a CWU Live show.
Any enquiries regarding this LTB should be addressed to the Postal Department, Hayley
Ford on
hford@cwu.org and General Secretary’s Department, Dawn Lynch on
dlynch@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely,
Martin Walsh Dave Ward
Deputy General Secretary (Postal) General Secretary
Tony Bouch Davie Robertson Andy Furey
Assistant Secretary Assistant Secretary Assistant Secretary
