LTB 186/25 – EP GROUP/CWU AGREEMENT – REBUILDING ROYAL MAIL – IMPORTANT UPDATE
No. 186/25
27th August 2025
TO ALL POSTAL BRANCHES
Dear Colleagues
EP GROUP/CWU AGREEMENT – REBUILDING ROYAL MAIL – IMPORTANT UPDATE
The purpose of this LTB is to advise CWU Branches, Representatives and Members of some important developments on the above agreement, which has now been ratified by our members, alongside the 3 year pay settlement.
Following a meeting last week between the respective senior teams of RMG and CWU, the Union has written to the CEO of IDS Martin Seidenberg and the interim CEO of RMG Alistair Cochrane, expressing our major disappointment at the company’s failure to communicate and socialise with their managers at all levels, on the substance, content and radical nature of the EP Group/CWU agreement.
It is also noticeable that Royal Mail communicate extensively with employees on Ofcom and the USO but have yet to say anything of substance to their employees on what the EP Group agreement is all about.
To substantiate our concerns the Union has presented the leaders of the company with a comprehensive audit of the agreement, breaking it down section by section and providing overwhelming evidence that Royal Mail are not deploying the overall content and spirit of the agreement. This includes, not bringing to an end their deeply entrenched “It’s our business to run” managerial culture, which inflicted the ongoing resourcing and customer quality crisis that continues to do untold damage to staff morale and the company’s future prospects.
As a result of our concerns, we have formally advised RM that in addition to the need to resolve the outstanding issues on the USO, as reported in LTB 182/25 last week,( viewtopic.php?f=1&t=117037 ) we cannot reach an agreement on the USO until the following steps are agreed:
- EP Group/CWU agreement – Deployment of a plan to reset employee and industrial relations at all levels of the business, with a particular focus on specific actions that can be implemented in every office to improve the working environment and end the chaos that continues to take place as a result of a crisis in resourcing and quality of service.
- EP Group/CWU agreement – Agreement and deployment of a comprehensive communication plan from EP and Royal Mail that explains all sections of the agreement so that no manager, employee or CWU representative is in any doubt that the managerial ethos will change and that Royal Mail now support every part of the agreement.
- EP Group/CWU agreement – The resolution of all outstanding issues in section 5 to the timescales that were agreed under the EP Group/CWU agreement.
- USO – Acceptance from Royal Mail that the ODM model does not work and that agreement on USO deployment must be based on the alternative approach our teams have been discussing, alongside deployment of the EP/CWU agreement.
We understand that in making these valid criticisms of Royal Mail management, our reps and members will rightly question why the new owners have not intervened? Also, whether EP Group are fully committed to the agreement they reached with the Union?
At this stage, in our dealings with EP group, we have not yet had any cause to question their commitment to the agreement and we recognise that it was ultimately their intervention that saw the USO being separated from the pay deal. Furthermore, it is not the job of EP Group to run the business on a day-to-day basis. Nevertheless, we welcome the opportunity to discuss these matters directly with EP either before or at the inaugural Advisory Board meeting, which has now been scheduled for the 11th September.
We believe the real problem is that there remains deep resentment amongst managers across the business that the EP Group agreement gives postal workers and their Union a greater and more powerful say over how we jointly shape the future direction of the company. Moreover, that managers who supported the previous regime, cannot and will not come to terms with how virtually every section of the agreement reverses the approach the previous Board were taking.
Nobody who reads the agreement could doubt its clarity in every section and just how much it represents a departure from what CWU members have experienced in the last three or four years. Neither could anybody doubt that the agreement is meant to be the foundation for what we all hope is a very different and more positive future, as we navigate necessary change. This is why we cannot allow the current situation to continue.
We will keep Branches updated on the developing situation. In the meantime, we ask that all CWU representatives engage directly with our members on both the content of this LTB and last week’s detailed update setting out our position on the USO. Additionally, we want all reps to meet the managers you interface with and explain the position the Union has taken.
In conclusion, in the coming weeks we will continue to increase communications on a strategy to ensure managers, representatives and our members fully understand the importance of every aspect of the EP Group/CWU agreement, including the elements that were negotiated with the direct involvement of the UK Government.
Finally, the key message every single representative needs to take from this LTB is that we cannot view the USO or any other issue as separate from the EP Group/CWU agreement – the Unions position is clear – we can only move these matters forward together.
Yours sincerely
Dave Ward Martin Walsh
General Secretary Deputy General Secretary (Postal)
