Reversing Royal Mail’s Decline

[TrueBlueTerrier]

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2026/03/revers ... s-decline/

By
Dave Ward
Royal Mail’s owners must stop ignoring the chaos in the postal system and accept that quality service requires decent working conditions and a real vision for the company’s future.

When Royal Mail workers hear about their job in the news these days, it tends to be only bad news. When poor delivery rates, collapsing service quality or Ofcom statements are reported with depressing regularity, the workforce are seeing what they’ve known for too long.

But what helps even less is the response from Royal Mail; instead of confronting reality honestly, company figures offer endless excuses about illness, poor weather and other ‘short-term’ reasons for the systemic collapse of quality in Royal Mail.

This constant evasion is making the situation worse. Senior company figures who should be behaving responsibly are making up excuses for what is happening, and in doing so misleading the public and demoralising the workers they rely on to provide the service.

It’s no surprise that these growing concerns have reached national politics. Recently, House of Commons Business and Trade Committee chair Liam Byrne MP warned that the service has become ‘so poor’, prompting him to call Royal Mail boss Daniel Kretinsky and other senior managers to a select committee hearing this month to account for what’s going on.

The CWU will be formally attending, and we intend to tell the truth about what’s really happening, how our members are being treated and devalued on a daily basis, and the lack of integrity being shown by a management trying to mislead the public over the failing quality of service when members know the truth.

A Levelling Up Agenda
This committee hearing takes place as the CWU is engaged in intense negotiations with Royal Mail. Inside these negotiations, there are two immediate issues to resolve.

The first is the reform of the universal service obligation (USO), the legal requirement for Royal Mail to deliver letters across the UK at a certain standard of affordability and price. Royal Mail’s preferred solution is the Optimised Delivery Model (ODM), which moves second-class mail to alternate-weekday delivery while keeping first-class deliveries six days a week and reducing delivery route numbers. This, it is hoped, will save millions.

But after it has been piloted at dozens of offices, people in those workplaces are calling it a car-crash strategy. Instead of being guided by workers’ ability to deliver a quality service in their working hours, what’s happening right now is that in too many instances, work can’t be completed in time, and the postie comes back the next day with all the work from the previous day to complete.

This is why the CWU can’t accept this model being nationally adopted. Those who have worked on ODM pilot schemes know it will be a disaster that will only delay deliveries, degrade the service and demoralise the workforce even more.

The other issue is equalising terms for equal work. In September 2025, Kretinsky agreed to reverse the company strategy of previous boss Simon Thompson, who imposed terms and conditions on new workers that were closer to gig economy standards than the traditional standards of Royal Mail.

It has been a dreadful decision. Even under Royal Mail’s own figures; since 2022, 27,000 new entrants have left, with 50 percent leaving within the first year. In some cases, overwhelmed new workers have simply quit mid-shift, seeing the work as not worth it.

After agreeing to reverse this, a pathway for the equalisation of terms and conditions was to be arranged for December 2025. Royal Mail is now stalling on this, but the truth is that if this recruitment and retention crisis isn’t sorted, nothing will work, and the union remains absolutely committed to achieving this.

The past period has been bumpy, and the union has entered a formal dispute procedure with the employer. Additionally, after a meeting where both Kretinsky and government minister Peter Kyle were present, it was agreed there would be a four-week extension of talks.

A Levelling Up Agenda
This committee hearing takes place as the CWU is engaged in intense negotiations with Royal Mail. Inside these negotiations, there are two immediate issues to resolve.

The first is the reform of the universal service obligation (USO), the legal requirement for Royal Mail to deliver letters across the UK at a uniform price and service level. Royal Mail’s preferred solution is the Optimised Delivery Model (ODM), which moves second-class mail to alternate-weekday delivery while keeping first-class deliveries six days a week and reducing delivery route numbers. This, it is hoped, will save millions.

The first is the reform of the universal service obligation (USO). Royal Mail’s preferred solution is the Optimised Delivery Model (ODM), which moves second-class mail to alternate-weekday delivery while keeping first-class six days a week and reducing delivery route numbers. This, it is hoped, will save millions.

But after it has been piloted at dozens of offices, people in those workplaces are calling it a car-crash strategy. Instead of being guided by workers’ ability to deliver a quality service in their working hours, what’s happening right now is that in too many instances, work can’t be completed in time, and the postie comes back the next day with all the work from the previous day to complete.

This is why the CWU can’t accept this model being nationally adopted. Those who have worked on ODM pilot schemes know it will be a disaster that will only delay deliveries, degrade the service and demoralise the workforce even more.

The other issue is equalising terms for equal work. In September 2025, Kretinsky agreed to reverse the company strategy of previous boss Simon Thompson, who imposed terms and conditions on new workers that were closer to gig economy standards than the traditional standards of Royal Mail.

It has been a dreadful decision. Even under Royal Mail’s own figures; since 2022, 27,000 new entrants have left, with 50 percent leaving within the first year. In some cases, overwhelmed new workers have simply quit mid-shift, seeing the work as not worth it.

After agreeing to reverse this, a pathway for the equalisation of terms and conditions was to be arranged for December 2025. Royal Mail is now stalling on this, but the truth is that if this recruitment and retention crisis isn’t sorted, nothing will work, and the union remains absolutely committed to achieving this.

The past period has been bumpy, and the union has entered a formal dispute procedure with the employer. Additionally, after a meeting where both Kretinsky and government minister Peter Kyle were present, it was agreed there would be a four-week extension of talks.

Imagining Better
Ultimately, no model will work unless the voices of Royal Mail workers are heard. They are the company’s greatest asset, and can’t be ignored, even if it interferes with what senior figures want to think. Our members are very clear on the problems facing Royal Mail, and unless there is a significant change in direction, the company could take the path to terminal decline.

Financial health will come with maintaining service quality, which requires both work and respecting the workforce. The current approach is an incredibly chaotic way of doing things, and you wonder if this is a deliberate strategy to accelerate letter decline and arrive at a situation like in Denmark, where the USO was abolished entirely in 2024.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Royal Mail can easily maintain delivering letters that millions of people rely on while also growing into parcel deliveries. But it’d be ludicrous to allow a company like Royal Mail to become just another parcel carrier.

The unique local connections Royal Mail workers enjoy should be a natural asset to any business. There’s a social aspect to our members’ work, and they could easily assist the NHS, government and any amount of local services. And with our infrastructural advantage, what else could Royal Mail do that benefits the country?

But right now, Royal Mail’s management seems to treat these strengths as weaknesses. There’s a clear case for a growing company which carries on delivering letters, embraces parcel deliveries and utilises the accumulated knowledge of postal workers, but management has to believe in it too.

But time is short. With Ofcom already indicating that further penalties could be incurred, there is a real risk that Royal Mail might be fined out of existence. This should concern the government, whose workers’ rights agenda has been one of its most popular public offers. If Royal Mail enters into further crisis, it will only add to the sense of decline the country is feeling.

If Royal Mail doesn’t grow, it can’t survive. Postal workers recognise the need for change. But what we can’t accept is the idea that Royal Mail cannot have a bright future. The only route can be a race to the top, not the bottom: we need to widen the political horizons beyond a framework in which the only choice is either Amazon-style casual labour or the collapse of institutions that should be healthy and profitable. In the coming weeks and months, the CWU will continue to encourage and develop that agenda.

[tramssirhc]

David Ward - time to write this, no time to tell members what's going on in his secret meetings. The CWU agreed to the pilots. Walsh said there was no plan b and 3 into 4 was the future. The real problem is the delivery profile. If that doesn't change then all the division of labour in the world won't fix the chaos.

[Mr Rush]

what’s happening right now is that in too many instances, work can’t be completed in time, and the postie comes back the next day with all the work from the previous day to complete.

Emphasis mine. It's the work from the day before the previous day because it's alternate day delivery. If/when it works as intended you've always got at least two days worth of stuff in the frame.