Royal Mail urges union to honour agreements

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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The CWU’s strike action in parts of London today is completely at odds with its repeated claim to support modernisation and "to introduce new ways of working throughout the business". In May, the union stated its belief that "investment in, and the pace of, modernisation needs to be stepped up" - and yet despite claims to support modernisation, the CWU has for months waged a campaign on the ground of active opposition to change.

Royal Mail apologises to its customers for any disruption to the service caused by the Communication Workers Union’s strike action and assures them that we are doing all we can to deliver the mail. Around a third of our operational people due to work today are collecting, sorting and delivering the mail, including in the three biggest units, which are not part of today’s strike. Some 1,400 management volunteers are also providing a service to customers across London.

We have urged the union repeatedly to honour its public statements and not to call our people out on strike action which can only hurt our customers and damage our drive to build a strong and sustainable future for Royal Mail and its people - and to protect the Universal Service in the competitive marketplace.

With productivity in London offices lagging behind the rest of the country - and in some parts of the capital by up to 35% below the best in other UK regions - it’s clear the CWU should honour fully existing agreements, including the agreement the union leadership signed in the presence of the TUC in 2007, which have led to the successful introduction of new ways of working in units throughout the rest of the UK.

The 2007 agreement covers the changes we urgently need to make in London as mail volumes fall at a rate of around 10% per annum with every 1% fall costing some £70 million annually in lost revenue. Royal Mail has already made similar changes in many delivery offices outside London and we are asking no more of employees in the capital than in the rest of the UK. As mail volumes fall and the type of mail we are carrying changes we must urgently adapt and become more efficient right across the country.

A strike will not modernise Royal Mail - it will simply hurt customers and disrupt the service to which they are entitled, lead to an even greater loss of business and leave Royal Mail far less able to protect full time jobs.

Ends

Notes to Editors
1. The three largest offices in London have not been called out on strike by the union - the Mount Pleasant and South London mail centres, and the West End delivery office off Oxford Street - and mail is being collected, sorted and delivered across of a wide area of central London. Everything possible is being done to provide services in those areas where the union is taking strike action with management volunteers making many deliveries, and postboxes remaining open with collections taking place.
2. Productivity in Royal Mail offices in London is lagging behind the rest of the UK and there is an urgent need to improve efficiency. In some parts of London, productivity lags up to 35% behind the best regions elsewhere in the UK and the overall productivity in the capital is around 10% worse than average UK levels.
3. Declining mail volumes in Royal Mail - a phenomenon seen around the postal world as broadband and internet coverage expands and with the recession accelerating the trend - has resulted in Royal Mail nationally handling almost ten million fewer letters a day on average compared to three years ago. Mail volumes have declined in London as in other parts of the UK and the EC postcode, for example, in central London is now seeing a daily postbag of 530,000 letters, packets and parcels compared to 600,000 12 months ago.
4. Royal Mail remains willing to meet the union. There was a meeting earlier this week at which we again urged today’s strike to be cancelled.
5. Detailed customer advice on today’s services can be found on the Royal Mail web site at http://www.royalmail.com/serviceupdates" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Post Office and Parcelforce Worldwide services are unaffected by today’s strike action.

Issued by Royal Mail:
100 Victoria Embankment
LONDON
EC4Y 0HQ
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[Lounge Lizard]

"Around a third of our people due to work are" working. Right, so with a sixth of the staff on their day off today and perhaps a sixth of the staff based at Mount Pleasant, Rathbone Place and Nine Elms, that means that support for the strike must be solid.
"The three largest offices in London have not been called out on strike by the union". Possibly technically correct but no mention was made that they intended to be out and have not been called out solely because moves by Royal Mail means this would have been UNofficial action.

[rhino49]

I liked the bit about "management volunteers" - I bet they were pleading to be allowed to help - or was that pleading to be allowed to keep their jobs and do anything they were "asked" to do. We are now living in an economy based on fear, every employer has been given carte blanche to lie, cheat and threaten in the pursuit of reduced costs with no justifiable reason in most cases for doing so. The so called "Labour" government should change it's name to the "Slavery" party, because, like the employers whose side it is wholly on, it wants everything for nothing and the only accountability for it's failures foisted upon the working man. It is time managers throughout this country, in Royal Mail and elsewhere started to be honest about what is reasonable and stood up to the robber barons of trade and industry who use computers instead of brains because they don't have to worry about feelings and instincts getting in the way of profit or when the s**t really hits the fan it won't be just posters hanging from lamp posts.

[Big Daz]

Someone from London was working in my D.O yesterday.

Some of the mbrs at my D.O were not very happy with that.

However I did see the non striker wandering around the estate were I live just after 2pm looking a wee bit lost