Royal Mail staff has delayed going on strike even though votes came in overwhelmingly in favour of it. In a ballot for CWU members in Parcelforce Worldwide, favourable votes were above 90% on a turnout of 63.4%, though Royal Mail claims that eligible votes only reached 53.9%.
In February, Royal Mail offered a 6%, three-year pay proposal for its CWU-grade people at Royal Mail. This means an increase, including the first hour of the shorter working week, of over 16% between April 1, 2018 and March 31, 2023. But Royal Mail said, it can only afford to do this if it delivers the Plan announced to its stakeholders last year.
While Royal Mail expressed its disappointment, Shane O’Riordain, Managing Director of Regulation, Corporate Affairs and Marketing said, “we welcome and appreciate CWU’s statement this afternoon that now is not the time to take industrial action. […] As the coronavirus crisis has developed, we have worked with CWU to formulate and implement the appropriate sick pay and absence policy for our colleagues. We jointly agreed the policy and communicated it to our colleagues last week. Colleagues, including those with less than one year’s service, will receive full pay in relation to any coronavirus illness or self-isolation. We have made adjustments to our parcel handling procedures to protect our colleagues and our customers. We are ready to discuss CWU’s proposals for future strategic business opportunities. Our negotiating team is ready to continue the dialogue to agree a framework to try to find a resolution to the current dispute. We are meeting soon. We want to reach agreement”.
Source: Royal Mail
