Postmen have been forced to skip more than a million addresses every day amid a staffing crisis at Royal Mail.
Areas across the country are being left without deliveries for ‘days on end’, unions say, as industrial action threatens the postal service over the summer.
MPs and unions have blamed bosses for slashing costs by making mass redundancies just as it struggles to hire postmen to fill gaps.
The company’s growing parcel business has been prioritised, leading to claims that Royal Mail ‘doesn’t care about letters’. Industry regulator Ofcom has launched an investigation into the company’s failure to hit delivery targets during the past year.
Royal Mail completed only 94 per cent of its 55,000 daily delivery routes last year, falling short of its target of 99.9 per cent. This means up to 1.7 million of the UK’s 29 million homes could be missing their delivery every day.
Royal Mail is required by law to provide a universal postal service, delivering and collecting letters six days per week, and it can be fined for missing targets.
The delays are being exacerbated by workers self-isolating with Covid and the heat, which has forced some to finish their rounds early.
Barry Gardiner, Labour MP for Brent North, said: ‘In all parts of the country, there are decisions being taken by managers about which rounds or streets will not get their mail delivered that day. The strain is showing in the service delivery.
MPs and unions have blamed bosses for slashing costs by making mass redundancies as it struggles to hire postmen to fill the gaps
‘There were senior managers that were made redundant – about 1,250 – and now another 542 are in dispute. That is a severe loss of knowledge for the organisation at a critical level.’
Managers are set to strike from Wednesday to Friday next week. The Unite union, which represents managers, claims that the cuts are unnecessary as the firm is ‘awash with cash’.
Royal Mail say there is no grounds for industrial action as a consultation was completed earlier this year and restructuring is complete.
It said: ‘We continue to receive high numbers of applications for our vacancies and have high levels of staff retention. The restructure has not resulted in us needing to rotate walks... deliveries are operating as usual across most of the country.’
