Make 2026 the start of a fightback at Royal Mail against CWU collusion with EP Group and Starmer government

[stage3]

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/ ... -j27.html

Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee

We have endured a particularly brutal Christmas, dominated by the ongoing collapse of the letters service—the result of thousands of job losses and chronic understaffing—while punishing workloads have been pushed to extremes amid a holiday surge in parcels.

Royal Mail acknowledged delays in mail delivery to 142 postcodes across the UK in the week before Christmas. This does not tell the full story. The New Year opened with delays of two weeks were rife across the country, and in Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, up to six weeks—“postal deserts” where vital mail - medical appointments, legal documents, and bills—go missing.


A Royal Mail postal worker delivering mail, May 2024
The official response has been the expected whitewash. Royal Mail blamed staff sickness, resourcing and “other local factors”, while repeating the discredited claim that more profitable parcels were not being prioritised over letters.

In Wolverhampton, a company spokesman even tried to justify this on safety grounds with parcels “taking up far more space than letters” and blocking walkways. So, on top of impossible workloads, our workplace is inherently unsafe. Not only trip hazards but obstacles impeding an evacuation in the case of an emergency.

As a colleague explained on social media: “This year has been particularly bad, less staff and about 30% more parcels than last year across the board. We are exhausted, frustrated, overworked and underpaid. So I’m personally sorry you didn’t get your mail, but like hell am I going to work myself to the bone for a company that cares about money over the people and its staff.”

EP Group’s takeover
This points to the fact this chaos is not accidental. It is the direct outcome of billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s EP Group takeover completed last May.

The £3.6 billion acquisition sailed through with the Starmer government’s rubber stamp via its Deed of Undertaking in December 2024, tied to the Framework Agreement signed by Communication Workers Union (CWU) leaders Dave Ward and Martin Walsh with EP Group: agreed in private and followed by the fanfare of “a fresh start”.


Daniel Křetínský, Dave Ward, Royal Mail [Photo: Top left: EP Holding / Bottom left: WSWS / Right: CC BY 2.0]

A PR exercise was crafted welcoming EP Group as a long-time investor committed to the six-day Universal Service Obligation (USO) and First-Class letters. This was to deflect our objections that the takeover was an asset-stripping operation designed to intensify the managed decline of the mail service and convert Royal Mail into a low-wage parcel courier network.

Kretinsky paid lip service to the USO as the regulator Ofcom readied the reduction of letter delivery to alternate weekdays for all non-First-Class mail and watering down of delivery targets for all letters—formally approved last July.


CWU officials acted as industrial enforcers to trail-blaze the sweatshop conditions accompanying the downgraded mail service, working through the union’s agreement to trial the Optimised Delivery Model (ODM)—based on extended delivery spans and parcel-driven workloads as letters are gutted.

Since February 2025 this has been “piloted” at 35 units as a downpayment on USO “reform” to be rolled out across all 1,250 delivery units nationally. Our committee has been a watchdog for postal workers, exposing the brutal conditions on the pilots and advocating a unified pushback.

We have opposed the manufacturing of consent by Walsh and Ward. After agreeing to the Framework Agreement with the Starmer government and Kretinsky, Ward, Walsh and the executive put it to a members’ ballot more than half a year later, packaged as part of the three-year pay deal. The so-called “reset” claimed it secured “stability” based on a pay award tied to the lower CPI inflation rate—another real-terms pay cut.

The result in August witnessed mass abstention, securing the Yes vote of just one in three members. Even this depended on pledges—described as Part 2 of the Framework Agreement—to resolve “outstanding issues”.

Most significant was the promise of an equalisation pathway for new entrants on inferior pay and terms, now unceremoniously ditched. Despite the CWU conceding that qualification could take three years, deadlines to agree a deal with the company in September and December were broken.

The CWU’s “update”

This deceit has played out as we were kept in the dark. Walsh, Ward and other national executive officials finally issued a Letter to Branches (LTB) on January 20, risibly described as an “update”. The hallmark of the rambling 1,700-word salad is the authors’ refusal to take responsibility for their “groundbreaking agreement”.

The centre of the gaslighting operation is the claim that agreements have not been “honoured”. But, stripped of the worthless promises, this is what Walsh & Co agreed. The downgrading of the mail service and sweatshop conditions were baked into the 12-page Framework Agreement, couched in the pro-business language of USO “reform”.


CWU's Letter to Branches, dated Kanuary 20, 2026 [Photo: CWU]

The LTB makes clear the CWU apparatus remains in lockstep with the company: “The CWU is totally committed to introducing USO Reform in every workplace because we recognise the changing dynamics of the market, the commercial realities facing the business and the fact that Royal Mail now operates in a permanently changed world of communications.”

Even as Royal Mail moves to executive action to impose ODM nationally, this will not be resisted by CWU officials. Instead, they will retreat into closed-door meetings for weeks to promote an alternative that constitutes no opposition at all.

The LTB refers to a “constructive counter proposal” to “provide the company with significant savings”. This has not been drawn up in consultation with members. The so-called “heavy and light option” accepts that we can absorb extra work through 12 percent productivity increases to eliminate more jobs—demonstrating that they are indifferent to the reality of our already unsafe and crippling workloads.


The CWU has justified every attack on jobs and increase to workloads since privatisation in 2013 as “modernisation”. Far from being opposed to automation and AI, we recognise these technologies can be used to reduce the working week and make our job safer—but only if workers begin to assert their priorities and demand control of how it is used.

We have been here before with the sellout agreement of July 2023. This was engineered after CWU leaders broke the national strike and co-authored with Royal Mail executives a pro-company deal launching a scorched-earth policy against jobs, pay and conditions. They were central to imposing a two-tier workforce and slashing sick pay.

The central lesson is opposition cannot remain unorganised, especially when the stakes are even higher. In the LTB, the CWU echoes company threats that the “financial position is deteriorating”, that compulsory redundancies cannot be ruled out, and that even the derisory three-year pay deal is at risk.

For a rank-and-file movement against the CWU-Kretinsky-Labour alliance
The CWU’s actions flow from their collusion with the Starmer government and call for a three-way meeting including EP Group, peddling claims of protection through Labour’s “golden share in Royal Mail for the first time since privatisation”.

This £1 share says everything about the sham regulation embodied in the Deed of Undertaking, including granting EP Group the right to break up Royal Mail or GLS after three years. The criteria for asset stripping (“wealth extraction”) was set at the rock bottom benchmark of meeting the delivery performance based on 2023–24 figures, one of the past three years in which Royal Mail has systematically breached its legal duties.

What is really involved is a joint effort to discipline us on behalf of the corporate oligarchy, tied in to Labour’s agenda of austerity and public service cuts—to satisfy international creditors and divert resources towards the military. The CWU’s mantra of challenging the company’s ethos—“our business to run”—is used to justify their involvement, promoted to the boardroom as part of “new governance” and serving as junior partners to management.

Workers can put a stop to this by asserting what is right and necessary against the profit interest of the private-equity billionaires at EP Group, represented jointly by the union apparatus and the government. We appeal to you to help expand the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (PWRFC) to make this possible.

Organising from the shop floor—establishing independent committees in delivery offices and mail centres, and throughout distribution and Parcelforce—is essential. These committees must advance clear demands: no executive impositions, no USO “reform”, an end to two-tier pay and conditions, defence of a fully funded daily universal mail service, and opposition to all job cuts and workload intensification.

Postal workers are far from powerless. Our power lies not in partnership with EP Group or appeals to the Starmer government, but in the conscious, organised mobilisation of more than 100,000 postal workers. Above all, the struggle must be politically oriented, linking postal workers in the UK with postal and logistics workers internationally facing the same attacks and privatisation drives.

This is the fight the PWRFC is taking up as part of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees.

[tramssirhc]

Hot take

[Martin Walsh]

This has not lasted well at all !

[toonshola]

This has not lasted well at all !

Must have been taking notes from you as everything you and Dave have said over the last 18 months hasn’t lasted well too!

[goddard7]

Where is Chris Webb?

[stage3]

This has not lasted well at all !

Your comment implies that the PWRFC statement has been disproven by events over the past few days.

How exactly is this the case?

In fact, nothing has aged more badly than your pro-company agreements—first the Business Transformation Agreement, and then the Framework Agreement with EP Group —which have inflicted this disaster.

The statement summed up an experience that has become an everyday reality: chronic understaffing, unsafe workloads, the prioritisation of parcels, and the creation of postal deserts.

Who is meant to be taken in by your claim that the CWU leadership does not agree with the Optimised Delivery Model (ODM)? You agreed to impose this model foisted on 35 delivery units from early last year. You signed up to it with Royal Mail without any consent from the membership as part of the Framework Agreement with Kretinsky—preparatory to its national rollout.

It is worth recalling that the last time you challenged the PWRFC, in March last year, it was to oppose our “interference” with the trials. You equated members holding workplace meetings to scrutinise the content of the ODM and democratically agree a course of action to defend jobs and oppose unsafe workloads as some kind of unofficial action. This was while you cited Ofcom as the ultimate authority, insisted there was no alternative, and demanded that £300 million of cuts had to be made.

Do we really need to ask who has been vindicated by the operational breakdown and gig-economy conditions that have prevailed in the pilot sites?

Yet in your Letter to Branches of January 29, even as the company threatens executive action to roll out ODM across all 1,250 delivery offices, you state that “we will enter negotiations to try and persuade Royal Mail to adopt the heavy and light model which worked with a number of pilot sites during the peak.”

What proof have you provided to members to substantiate this claim? Your “constructive counter proposal” is based on squeezing more productivity on top of already crippling workloads, paving the way for further job losses.

Your attacks on the PWRFC is made because it raises uncomfortable truths about USO “reform”, challenges your lack of accountability, and argues for power to be placed back where it belongs—in the hands of the rank and file—to wage a fight, not appease billionaire equity owners.

[Playmail]

Stage3 is right what he's saying the union works more for the company than its members what has this union won us nothing what has the union taken away in deals loads sick pay terms and conditions and now even more work with less time to do it all.

[Playmail]

We don't have anymore time in the day to do more work your just making the impossible even more impossible and cutting jobs for call it odm call it heavy and light us workers will call it impossible

[moon71]

Stage3 is right what he's saying the union works more for the company than its members what has this union won us nothing what has the union taken away in deals loads sick pay terms and conditions and now even more work with less time to do it all.

The Union won some small concessions after the strike in 2022. The fact that legacy contracts are still in existence, the sick pay is still better than most, the fact that your paid from the moment you start instead of the first packet delivered, the fact that your paid more than NMW, the fact that your not an owner driver, self employed, a pay rise in the deal, I could go on. The PWRFC can't represent you, it's almost as if they are illegal. There's nothing stopping them making a Union, but after all these years, you have to realise they don't want to represent, but just stir sh!t up. Sh!t stirrers. And that includes you stage3, sh!t stirrer.

2nd point to you post, even more work with less time to do it. Easily explained, clock in, take your break, go home on time. Anyone else not following this is a moron. You don't actually do more work, it's just angry words moaning. Come in, do your bit, be fair, your untouchable.

Frustrating that people keep blaming the two tier workforce on the union backing down, remember, it was imposed by executive action. We lost that strike due to a mixture of incompetence and aggressive management. Accept it.

But best just keep listening to this crap and sh!tting on your environment with unhappiness, running every thing down and campaigning for stuff that's just not going to happen. Seems weird that these PWRFC have nothing positive to offer.

And lastly I will add my punchline, if you delivery staff aren't happy, get a processing duty in a MC, or better take your lorry course and drive a lorry (those guys are realy happy), or possibly look to small vans collections (those guys are realy happy). It's time for a change, you can be happy.

But accept, everytime stage3 posts something from the WSWSWS whatever, it biles people up, because theirs a small minority of folks that just like stirring sh!t. One day they'll make a cake and call it a Union. I might even join. But they won't make a union because at heart, their just sh!t stirrers.

[tramssirhc]

The absolute state of the CWU attack bots in this thread.

[tramssirhc]

Stage3 is right what he's saying the union works more for the company than its members what has this union won us nothing what has the union taken away in deals loads sick pay terms and conditions and now even more work with less time to do it all.

The Union won some small concessions after the strike in 2022. The fact that legacy contracts are still in existence, the sick pay is still better than most, the fact that your paid from the moment you start instead of the first packet delivered, the fact that your paid more than NMW, the fact that your not an owner driver, self employed, a pay rise in the deal, I could go on. The PWRFC can't represent you, it's almost as if they are illegal. There's nothing stopping them making a Union, but after all these years, you have to realise they don't want to represent, but just stir sh!t up. Sh!t stirrers. And that includes you stage3, sh!t stirrer.

2nd point to you post, even more work with less time to do it. Easily explained, clock in, take your break, go home on time. Anyone else not following this is a moron. You don't actually do more work, it's just angry words moaning. Come in, do your bit, be fair, your untouchable.

Frustrating that people keep blaming the two tier workforce on the union backing down, remember, it was imposed by executive action. We lost that strike due to a mixture of incompetence and aggressive management. Accept it.

But best just keep listening to this crap and sh!tting on your environment with unhappiness, running every thing down and campaigning for stuff that's just not going to happen. Seems weird that these PWRFC have nothing positive to offer.

And lastly I will add my punchline, if you delivery staff aren't happy, get a processing duty in a MC, or better take your lorry course and drive a lorry (those guys are realy happy), or possibly look to small vans collections (those guys are realy happy). It's time for a change, you can be happy.

But accept, everytime stage3 posts something from the WSWSWS whatever, it biles people up, because theirs a small minority of folks that just like stirring sh!t. One day they'll make a cake and call it a Union. I might even join. But they won't make a union because at heart, their just sh!t stirrers.

This attack bot, Moon71, reveals the thinking of every CWU rep - fit in or f**k off. Moon71 would be chosen from the pens by the overseer every time. Imagine ranting like Moon71 and then claiming no one reads these threads. Here's an idea for this attack bot - take your own advice and stop posting in this forum. You'll get nothing from your leaders for doing their bidding.

[SpacePhoenix]

get a processing duty in a MC

No chance of that. Generally when anyone leaves for whatever reason, they're replaced with casuals/agency. We have some casuals on shift every night and they've been on shift for many months, some at least a couple of years. AFAIK none of them have been offered a RM contract.

[ted_e_bear]

get a processing duty in a MC

No chance of that. Generally when anyone leaves for whatever reason, they're replaced with casuals/agency. We have some casuals on shift every night and they've been on shift for many months, some at least a couple of years. AFAIK none of them have been offered a RM contract.

That's what I thought there's no chance, I regularly check the RM recruitment sites both externall and internal success factors just to see if we're ever going to recruit someone and there's never anything advertised on either for my areas mail centre

[Sean06]

get a processing duty in a MC

No chance of that. Generally when anyone leaves for whatever reason, they're replaced with casuals/agency. We have some casuals on shift every night and they've been on shift for many months, some at least a couple of years. AFAIK none of them have been offered a RM contract.

That's what I thought there's no chance, I regularly check the RM recruitment sites both externall and internal success factors just to see if we're ever going to recruit someone and there's never anything advertised on either for my areas mail centre

Lots of agency offered pt contracts in nimc some took them up others did'nt.those that did'nt getting very little shifts.afaik lots more duties going up soon.

[moon71]

[/quote]

This attack bot, Moon71, reveals the thinking of every CWU rep - fit in or f**k off. Moon71 would be chosen from the pens by the overseer every time. Imagine ranting like Moon71 and then claiming no one reads these threads. Here's an idea for this attack bot - take your own advice and stop posting in this forum. You'll get nothing from your leaders for doing their bidding.
[/quote]
Still suffering depression trams?

Why not take your cookie club and actually do something?

2026 could be the year that the PWRFC actually achieves something. Think big. We've been waiting a long time.

As for doing the Unions work, I'm starting to realy see, how in my office, some people are better represented than others. Might cancel my sub an put it in a ISA.