Royal Mail praises posties with pensions under threat

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Royal Mail chief executive Moya Greene on Thursday praised Britain’s postmen for their hard work over Christmas, just as she prepares to cut their pensions.

The company is in the midst of a “consultation” process with members of the final-salary pension scheme and the unions who are fighting to protect the fund.

Greene said: “Our postmen and women delivered a great service at Christmas, even better than last year, with 138 million parcels handled in December alone.”

It is likely pensions will be cut, in some cases leading to income in retirement for the postmen being halved.

A trading update for the last nine months shows revenue in the UK fell 2%. Letters revenue was down 6%, a clear sign of the difficulty facing the business.

Britons send 40% fewer letters than 10 years ago, but they still account for 60% of Royal Mail’s business. It hopes that parcels will make up the gap, but faces competition from at least 16 other big players in what is a cut-throat market.

Parcels revenue was up 3% in the period.

The City took heart that Royal Mail is on track to meet forecasts for the year, but the shares took a hit due to the fall in letters, down 21p at 428p.

Royal Mail has around 600,000 retail shareholders who will get dividend payments. They include staff, who own 12% of the company.

Brian Scott, Unite officer for Royal Mail, said: “This confirmed the hard work and commitment of our members to deliver a good service to the public in the run-up to Christmas.

“However, it is extremely disappointing that Royal Mail is boasting about paying employees £500 in dividends when at the same time they are seeking to close their pension scheme which will cost those same employees thousands of pounds in hard-earned pension benefits.”

Royal Mail points out that is pays £400 million a year into the pension fund and £220 million a year in dividends. That makes it one of only 5 FTSE companies that pay more in pensions than in dividends.

[k979aaa]

It's a piss take by the company...

They are stealing my pension....
Paying the share holders larger profits.. from my pension pot...

I guess the board of directors wont be having their pension pots raided.... so to pay the share holder more profit.....

It's just your pension but all of our pensions and other things to come in time.