Payrise

[POSTMAN]

Post

“A Pay deal for tomorrow, not just today” - Our negotiations with CWU on pay and change are starting today.

I know many people are feeling the impact of the rising cost of living and want us to get a pay deal done quickly. We want this too.
It’s important that the negotiators on both sides have space in the room to debate and agree on the key elements of the deal. We want to respect that and won’t be conducting negotiations in public.

But I’m pleased to say that the discussions on pay have started, and I wanted to give you an update as soon as possible.
A pay deal for tomorrow, not just today

The first thing to say is that we want to give you a pay rise.

But I need to be honest. We can’t agree to an offer without the changes we need to grow our business. We need a pay deal that sets us up for tomorrow, not just today.

There are big pressures coming towards us. High inflation. The unwinding of the pandemic. Economic uncertainty, in no small part caused by the war in Ukraine. And all of this is likely to have an impact on how much our customers will have to spend on things like online shopping.

At the same time, we need to move quickly to get ahead of the trends we are seeing in the market – bigger parcels, and more demand for deliveries that arrive the next day – including Sunday – and that are more environmentally-friendly too.

With the best will in the world we can’t control the market. But we can adapt and respond to how it changes.

You will have seen in your own offices – and your own frames – that we are not optimised for the delivery of larger parcels. This makes the job harder for you, and it impacts the service we provide our customers.

We’re going to have to make some significant changes to the way we work to address these challenges.
We need to discuss these with CWU in detail, and that will be part of the negotiation.

But to give you an idea, we will be proposing changes designed to make sure we can deliver
· More parcels on Sunday - and at scale
· More parcels the next day
· More bigger parcels, quickly and efficiently
· And, at the same time reducing our environmental impact.

The need to reduce our environmental impact is becoming more urgent. It’s not a nice to have – it’s a necessity and it’s our responsibility.
And it is a competitive advantage for Royal Mail too – there is nothing greener than delivering on foot, after all.

We want to agree how we maximise our use of greener ‘on foot’ deliveries for letters and small parcels, reduce our reliance on flights, and increase our use of rail.

Maintaining the best terms and conditions in our industry

In an industry dominated by ‘gig economy’ models, insecure work, and low pay, we believe having a workforce that is 97% permanent with industry-leading terms and conditions and pensions really does set us apart.

But we have to acknowledge around 70% of our costs are people costs, and our overall pay package is up to 40% higher than key competitors. CWU research, for example, shows that nearly half of self-employed drivers in our industry report earning less than £15,000 a year.
We don’t want to – and will not – join that race to the bottom.

But we can’t charge our customers 40% more than our competitors, so we need to find a way to make sure we increase efficiency and control our costs.

We want to discuss options for this with CWU, including innovative and flexible duty patterns, and ways that we can reduce our reliance on temporary and agency workers.

Reinventing Royal Mail in a harmonious way

We’ve made a lot of progress working jointly with CWU over the past year or so. The best way to reinvent Royal Mail is to do it together, with our unions.
As I said at the start, we know you want us to get a pay deal done quickly. We do too. We’ll keep you updated as much as we can during the process.

Ricky McAulay, operations development director

[neil2k]

Good grief it's the hope that kills you.

They are a disgrace.

[2yearpostie]

Im reading that as we want you all to work on a Sunday. VOTE NO.

[Fdeezy]

Why do they keep saying it's a pay deal?

We just want a pay rise. After that we can make a separate pay deal.

[Cucumber]

We want to give you a pay rise, but it needs to be a deal.

Stopped reading after that.

[2yearpostie]

I vote to stay as we are.

[Pharox]

But we have to acknowledge around 70% of our costs are people costs, and our overall pay package is up to 40% higher than key competitors. CWU research, for example, shows that nearly half of self-employed drivers in our industry report earning less than £15,000 a year.

As far as I know, could be wrong, there is no direct key competition, as in, RM are the ONLY letters and parcels business, I believe a few other Co's tried and failed, so no longer in the market.

We don’t want to – and will not – join that race to the bottom.

Thought that is what RM upper management wanted (race to the bottom = rushed in p1ss poor revisions, little or no investment in equipment / staff)

But we can’t charge our customers 40% more than our competitors, so we need to find a way to make sure we increase efficiency and control our costs

Seems silly since RM just put the prices of stamps by over 10% so they are only 30% short, plus when ever I have looked at sending a pkt or parcel via RM, seems a LOT more expensive that others for a worse service (failed walks due to unmanageable workloads).

[richietns]

We want to give you a pay rise, but it needs to be a deal.

Stopped reading after that.

Exactly there double speak is really insulting.

[Tinoblade]

Feel like this one is going to get messy

[mjd24]

This whole drag the talks out and bribe us with a back pay lump sum is clearly a deliberate technique Royal Mail use because they know it works and saves them money.

[mjd24]

Does anyone else wonder how much Royal Mail will care or be bothered if we do threaten to strike? Maybe im being naive but how much of an impact will a strike really have?

[Chitchat]

Why does every payrise have to be a pay deal? With a special name, agada this growth that.

We are as well as royal mail dealing with unprecedented inflation but the difference is many people working for royal mail are living pay packet to pay packet. With little room to absorb massive increases like filling up their car just so they can get to work. Or Heating their homes, so after spending most of the day outside they can seek some solace in a warm home. Or going food shopping and seeing that they weekly budget for food is getting them less and less food.

So can we just stop with trying to make this an opportunity to get more from an already drained over worked workforce and just give us a payrise so my wages can still have the same value as they did last year.

[richietns]

Does anyone else wonder how much Royal Mail will care or be bothered if we do threaten to strike? Maybe im being naive but how much of an impact will a strike really have?

Strikes lead to deals we just want a straight forward payrise thats the difference.

[Cucumber]

So, according to the union it's a pay rise or ballot for strike?

[Pharox]

Does anyone else wonder how much Royal Mail will care or be bothered if we do threaten to strike? Maybe im being naive but how much of an impact will a strike really have?

Strikes lead to deals we just want a straight forward payrise thats the difference.

The problem with the 'threat' or voted in strikes is that, if we went out on strike, upper management might feel "that's ok, you're all fired, but you all can come back on less pay and far worse T&C's". Just like the poor guys at P&O.