Royal Mail faces a possible strike by 4,900 of its managers in a pay dispute that could threaten mail and parcel deliveries to 27 million homes across the UK, according to services union Unite.
Managerial staff at the British postal operator yesterday started receiving ballot papers for industrial action through the post. The vote, which does not cover Parcelforce Worldwide services, closes on Thursday 21 April.
The managers will be asked to vote on taking strike action and/or industrial action short of a strike after they overwhelmingly rejected a ‘paltry’ 1.3% pay offer for the year starting September 2015 in a consultative ballot, Unite said yesterday. The union said it is calling for talks under the auspices of the conciliation service Acas, but claimed that so far management has declined to take up this offer.
Unite officer for Royal Mail members Brian Scott said: “Our members are disgusted and upset by the abject failure of Royal Mail to take the issue of pay seriously. It is adopting a high handed attitude.
“The company’s final pay offer has already been rejected by 95% of Unite members, but the management remains unwilling to sit down and find a way through this difficulty. The dispute is about the 1.3% pay offer for some employees, with a non-consolidated lump sum for others. There has been no increase in overtime or allowances.”
However, Unite said that the pay dispute is part of a much wider set of problems engulfing the now privately-owned Royal Mail, which include the possible failure to meet its Universal Service Obligation (USO) to deliver letters six days-a-week to 27 million address. massive cost-cutting and redundancies.
“There are a number of other serious factors that are of great concern to Unite members. Royal Mail has made a commitment to City investors to cut costs by £500 million and it is Unite members that are bearing the brunt of that,” Scott commented.
“Had it not been for Unite members going out on daily deliveries – a role they are not employed for – the Royal Mail would have failed its USO and been dragged in front of the regulatory body, Ofcom, and very probably fined millions of pounds. This was simply because Royal Mail refused to fill vacancies at the right time – a failure of its own doing.
“Unite members are also facing threats of compulsory redundancy – there have already been more than 530 redundancies across the organisation this year. There are enough jobs for our members that are at risk of redundancy but the company refuses to take positive action. Instead the company is penny pinching to reduce headcount before the end of the financial year in an effort to hoodwink its shareholders that it has reduced the number of employees.”
The union official warned: “If bosses don’t get around the table and industrial action goes ahead, it will hit the delivery of mail and parcels. Mail will arrive late in delivery offices which will mean the next day service will fail, breaching the USO agreement.”
In response, Royal Mail said it was “disappointing” that Unite had chosen to hold a strike ballot but stressed that this “does not mean that any action will take place”. The company claimed it had put forward a “fair and competitive” offer and wanted to reach an agreement as quickly as possible.
