The Communication Workers Union (CWU) is urging postal workers to write to their MPs as part of its ongoing #StandByYourPostie campaign.
The campaign has already resulted in several MPs making statements in Parliament about Royal Mail service levels and the conditions being experienced by workers in their constituencies.
The CWU has also produced a ‘factsheet’ for its members to send to their MPs, detailing the CWU’s position.
It states that the service issues at Royal Mail are “a long-term, self-inflicted crisis” that was caused by the previous Royal Mail board, including the decision to impose lower wages, longer hours and poorer conditions on new joiners from 2022, leading to a two-tier employment model.
The CWU claimed that 50% of new entrants joining Royal Mail leave within their first year of employment, and that 27,000 new entrants have left since 2022.
“Unless Royal Mail and its new owners are held to account on the agreements they reached with the union and the government, Royal Mail will deploy a strategy to become just another parcel courier, accelerating letter decline and replicating gig-economy terms and condition,” the CWU factsheet states.
The factsheet can be downloaded here.
Royal Mail bosses are set to appear before Parliament’s Business & Trade Select Committee next week.
The group declined to comment on the CWU campaign specifically.
Royal Mail insisted the pilot sites for the new USO delivery model were working, in stark contrast to the CWU, which described the new model as having “failed in trials because it prioritises unachievable savings (job cuts) over delivering a good service led by frontline postal workers”.
In a statement, Royal Mail said: “While Unite CMA agreed to deployment of USO reform last year, an agreement has not yet been reached with the CWU despite a commitment from the CWU to do so by July 2025. Therefore, in January Royal Mail’s discussions with the CWU regarding USO reform deployment were moved into the Achieving National Agreement Procedure.
“Given strong evidence from the pilots conducted that USO reform will result in significant and sustained improvements in quality of service for customers, Royal Mail sees no alternative to its urgent deployment across the network.”
In February Royal Mail CEO Alistair Cochrane said the business was in “intense discussions” with the CWU to find a way forward.