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LONDON – Strikers from the CWU trade union attend a picket line at Peckham Royal Mail Center on November 24, 2022 in London, England. Strikes planned for the Black Friday weekend and the run-up to Christmas will go ahead after talks between Royal Mail and the Communications Workers Union ended without an agreement.
Guy Smallman/Getty Images
LONDON – Thousands of postal workers in the UK are on strike for two days, disrupting Black Friday after renegotiations. Royal Mail and fell through the Communication Workers Union.
Leaders of the trade union, which represents around 115,000 striking postal workers, re-entered talks with Royal Mail officials early last month, talks that have now gone on for seven months.
However, the Royal Mail Group – recently changed its name International distribution services On the London Stock Exchange – said in a statement on Wednesday that it had presented its “best and final offer” and accused the union of “holding Christmas to ransom”.
The CWU has announced 10 more days of strike action until Christmas Eve, four of which have been formally notified, the last coming on December 1.
In October, Royal Mail announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs by next summer and posted a half-year adjusted operating loss of £219 million ($265.3 million), and CEO Simon Thompson said the strikes had cost the company £100 million. Losses so far this year. IDS shares are down more than 58% since the start of the year.
“At a materially loss-making company, with each additional day of strike action we are faced with the difficult choice of whether to spend our money on pay and job security or on strike costs,” Thompson said Wednesday.
“The CWU’s planned strike action is holding Christmas to ransom for our customers, businesses and families across the country and putting their own members’ jobs at risk.”
The union said on Wednesday it had met with Royal Mail officials, but claimed Thompson did not attend. In a statement, the CWU warned that it was “the end of Royal Mail as we know it.”
Royal Mail claims its latest offer includes an enhanced pay deal of up to 9% over 18 months, a new profit share program for employees, a block on compulsory redundancies until the end of March 2023 and improvements to voluntary redundancy packages.
However, the union accused company executives of “turning the Royal Mail Group into a gig economy-style parcel courier, dependent on casual labour,” by imposing mandatory redundancies on postal workers while retaining agency workers on low pay. and “is totally inadequate.” A non-backdated 3.5% pay rise.”
He also said deals on the table include cuts in sick pay, elimination of Sunday premium payments, later start and finish times and “the introduction of technology that will monitor postal workers every minute of the day.”
Birmingham, UK – November 24, 2022: Postal workers on a picket line at the Central Delivery Office and Mail Center in Birmingham. Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) are on a 48-hour strike in a long-running dispute over jobs, pay and conditions.
Jacob King/PA Images via Getty Images
“We will not accept that 115,000 Royal Mail workers – the people who have kept us connected during the pandemic, and made millions in profits for bosses and shareholders – have suffered such a devastating blow to their livelihoods,” CWU general secretary Dave Ward said.
“These proposals spell the end of Royal Mail as we know it, and its degradation from a national institution to an untrustworthy, Uber-style gig economy company.”
After Royal Mail initially imposed a 2% pay rise on workers, when UK inflation was heading towards double digits, in August postal workers voted overwhelmingly in favor of strike action in protest over pay and conditions. UK inflation hit 11.1% in October.
The union is calling for an improved 18-month pay deal, a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies and “an alternative business strategy that will see Royal Mail Group use its competitive advantage to grow as a company rather than becoming a gig economy parcel employer.”
Strike across the sector
Public and private sector workers in the UK are on strike over pay, working conditions and pensions, with inflation running at its highest level for 40 years and last week the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) projected the biggest drop in living standards. Since the record began.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that industrial action lost an average of 19,500 working days per month in 2019, but this has increased since the Covid-19 pandemic, reaching 87,600 in July 2022.
Rail strikes have brought the country’s train services to a virtual standstill on several days throughout the year, and the RMT union, whose members work for Network Rail and 14 other train operators, recently voted in favor of four more 48-hour rail strikes. Run up to Christmas.
The Royal College of Nursing recently announced that its members would walk out by the end of the year for the first time in its 106-year history.
The British Medical Association will vote in January on a pay deal for junior doctors in England that will offer them a 2% rise this year, while 18,000 ambulance workers represented by the largely GMB and Unite unions are currently voting on strike.
Scottish teachers staged industrial action on Thursday that closed most schools in Scotland, also demanding a 10% pay rise, and UK-wide teaching unions representing a total of more than 400,000 teachers and support staff have ballots that are closed. January.
Telecom workers took strike action for the first time in more than 30 years in July to protest pay, with extended dates in August and October, while airline baggage handlers walked out for three days on November 18.
Around 100,000 civil servants, including Border Force officers, also recently voted to strike over the Christmas period, demanding a 10% pay rise.
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