Royal Mail accused of attack on union as it looks to end historic agreements with staff

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https://www.theguardian.com/business/li ... iness-live

Royal Mail wants to end historic agreements with staff, and head to ACAS

Royal Mail has announced it wants to tear up up some of its existing workplace agreements and policies, as the industrial dispute at the postal operator continues.

In a statement to the stock market, Royal Mail says it hasn’t reached agreement with the Communication Workers Union (CWU), after five months of talks over pay and conditions.

Royal Mail says it is now taking two steps to ‘break the impasse’, arguing that it needs to move fast to stem losses of £1m per day.

It has told CWU that it “wants to modernise the ways of working with them”, by reviewing or ending various agreements and policies.

It says:

As part of this, Royal Mail will review or serve notice on a number of historic agreements and policies which are currently being used by the CWU to frustrate transformation, and intends to move to a more modern industrial relations framework designed to make the business more agile, and able to compete more effectively.

The company says that ending these ‘historic agreements and policies’ will let it speed up decisions about overtime and leave, test technology more quickly, address ‘persistent short-term absense” and cut costs.

Royal Mail has also proposed that talks with the union should be taken to Acas (the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service), in the hope of ending the current industrial action.

When Royal Mail was privatised nine years ago, it agreed an “Agenda for Growth” which included key protections for staff.

That includes not taking on new staff on inferior terms to existing staff, no zero hours contracts, avoiding compulsary redundancies and temporary contracts, and not outsourcing parts of the business.

Last month, 115,000 Royal Mail workers went on strike in the year’s biggest industrial action so far.

Royal Mail workers have been offered a 2% pay rise, backdated to April, and further benefits equivalent to a 3.5% increase if they agree to changes in working practices to support the growth of its parcels business, according to the company.

Staff argue they should receive a pay increase in line with inflation with no strings attached.