Postal workers in Britain have accepted the pay and modernisation deal agreed between Royal Mailand the Communication Workers Union (CWU) last month. The vote ends the damaging dispute that
escalated into repeated strikes in recent months.The CWU announced that 64% of its members voting were in favour of accepting the agreement. Atotal of 80,310 postal workers voted, which represents 64% of the 126,000 CWU members at RoyalMail. The union said it had contacted Royal Mail asking the UK national postal group to ensure payincreases, lump sum and back pay are incorporated into pay before Christmas.
Under the agreement reached on October 22, staff will get an increase of 5.4% on basic payand weekday overtime from 1 October (equivalent to a cost of 2.5% in the financial year from April2007 to March 2008), a one-off sum of £175 from an existing employee “share of savings” scheme anda further 1.5% pay rise next April if all the reforms are made. The CWU agreed on new working timesand various modernisation measures, including the deployment of new technology.
Royal Mail said at the time it could now go ahead with essential plans to modernise thebusiness and make it more flexible, efficient and competitive.
