Hospital porters, cleaners and caterers are launching a two-week strike in a dispute over the money. The work stoppage has halted mail and parcel services across the country ahead of the busy holiday season. Network Rail wants to cut 1,900 jobs as part of changes to the way its maintenance australia braces for coal export ban as relations with china plummet teams work – although it insists most of this could be achieved by people leaving voluntarily. Around half of rail lines are shut again on Wednesday, with no services at all in most of Scotland and Wales. On Tuesday, a separate set of figures from the ONS revealed that the gap between wage growth in the public and private sector is near a record high. General Secretary Dave Ward said workers faced the “biggest ever assault” on jobs, terms and conditions “in the history of Royal Mail”.

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Postal worker Hannah Carrol, who is part a strike at Whitechapel in East London, said she wanted to see wages rise in line with the growing cost of living. The union has called for Royal Mail to increase wages to an amount that “covers the current cost of living”. However, given the close proximity to the other strikes and a build-up of delayed mail, disruption is still very likely and people are advised to post items well in advance if possible. Royal Mail says it’s “doing what blue chip brands we can” to keep services running but customers are warned of “significant disruption”. Twenty-one days will be affected by the strikes, which the union says will have a “dramatic impact” on peak periods such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the run-up to Christmas.

The main aim of striking postal workers is to gain a pay rise, which is in line with current inflation rates, but the walkouts are also over jobs and conditions. A national strike is in its first week at Canada Post by 55,000 postal workers over a new contract as the national carrier seeks to impose a brutal restructuring of jobs and conditions. Postal workers in America at United States Postal Service confront a renewed drive to gut the mail service and post office network, destroying jobs through increased automation in preparation for privatisation. More than 115,000 postal workers held a total of 18 days of strikes between September and December last year, demanding higher pay and better working conditions as rising inflation eroded earnings. This de facto pay cut has transformed Royal Mail into a minimum-wage employer with the hourly rate for new entrants standing at just 54 pence above the current National Living Wage. Last month Royal Mail proposed a “pay-for-change” offer which would include changes to workers’ shift patterns including start times and Sunday working in exchange for a 9% pay rise spread over two years.

1. The firm said a £134 million write-down linked to the national insurance increase has stopped it returning to profit for the past six months.
2. The union representing the workers is demanding a pay rise that more closely reflects the current rate of inflation.
3. However, because she relies “so heavily on the post” to get products from suppliers and to send her art to customers, she says it “has made my life very hard this Christmas season”.
4. “The agreement provides Royal Mail a platform for the next phase of stabilising the business whilst continuing to drive efficiencies and change,” a statement said.
5. The deal also includes later starting times for deliveries which, Royal Mail said, would respond to greater demand for next-day parcels, improve quality of service and create greater growth capacity.

The new strikes have been called for 9, 11, 14, 15, 23 and 24 December, the busiest time of the year for deliveries. “The agreement provides Royal Mail a platform for the next phase of stabilising the business whilst continuing to drive efficiencies and change,” a statement said. While industrial action has concluded, ill will between the union and Royal Mail remains.

They argued that the business was losing customer confidence because of the continuing dispute and risked becoming increasingly uncompetitive as it already paid its staff up to 40% more than cheaper rivals. Chairman Keith Williams has said that the firm is losing £1m a day as parcel volumes fall and efforts to modernise the business stall. The company is encouraging people to post items as early as possible to avoid disruption. It is the first of four days of industrial action, with walk-outs also taking place on 31 August as well as 8 and 9 September. “After industrial action takes place, we’ll be increasing our network capacity and using additional resources to assist with getting services back to normal,” says Royal Mail. Delivery staff are not yet involved on these days, so some people may still receive items.

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Acceptance of the deal will not mean a scaling down of union activity, Mr Ward said, nor is it an “endorsement” of Royal Mail actions. But he said Royal Mail’s chief executive and board “should seriously consider their futures” as the ballot was “also a vote of no confidence”. Dave Ward, CWU general secretary said there will now be a “small window” for talks to avoid walkouts before strike dates are set. Any strike dates are yet to be decided but the CWU said if a walk out goes ahead, it could amount to the biggest ever action taken by its members. Royal Mail’s Estimated Delivery Window will be suspended before, during and immediately after any industrial action to “avoid giving misleading information”. No letters – except those marked Special Delivery – will be delivered, with people advised to dispatch items Support resistance indicators as early as possible.

Royal Mail strikes end as postal workers vote to accept pay deal

“This vote is a historic testament to CWU members across the country who have stood firm against the most severe attacks faced by any set of workers since the miners,” Mr Ward said in a statement. Royal Mail’s latest adjusted operating profit for the year to March was £416m, up from £344m previously. Inflation, the rate at which prices rise, is at a 40-year high of 10.1% and expected to surpass 13% later this year. These walkouts are currently set to only involve delivery workers, so collections from postboxes and Post Offices should take place. Processing, distribution, international, collections and admin workers go on strike.

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The timescale commitment offered on Special Delivery Guaranteed items will be suspended the day before any strike. Tuesday’s walkout by rail staff left services running at about a fifth of capacity, on a day when snow, ice and fog hampered road and air travel. A spokesman for Royal Mail said the company had made a “best and final pay offer worth up to 9% over 18 months”. Evri, the delivery company formerly known as Hermes, said that severe weather, Royal Mail strikes and staff shortages are causing “some localised delays”. Some parcel companies claim the walkouts are having a knock-on effect, and forcing them to delay next-day deliveries as people and firms seek alternative ways to send their post.

The nonsense of a trickle-down effect for postal workers has already been exploded over the last year and follows a decade of privatisation that saw Royal Mail used as a cash cow by major shareholders and hedge funds. Those who will immediately capitalise on the buy-out—to the tune of millions—will be IDS’s Board of Directors and major investors as they cash in their shares. New seasonal working patterns and regular Sunday working, sought by the company, were also agreed. Royal Mail said this would allow it to grow its seven-day parcels business and adapt to changing customer demands. “Royal Mail can have a bright future, and the CWU play a part in that, but further strikes and resistance to change by the CWU will only worsen our financial position and threaten the long-term job security of our postmen and women.

The union has been told a 3.5% is available subject to further talks and agreements, which would total a 5.5% rise. “Despite nearly three months of talks, the CWU have not engaged in any meaningful discussion on the changes we need to make to adapt,” a statement added. Royal Mail said it had offered workers a “deal worth up to 5.5% for CWU grade colleagues, the biggest increase we have offered for many years, which the CWU rejected”. “Postal workers won’t accept their living standards being hammered by bosses who are typical of business leaders today – overpaid, underqualified, out of their depth.”

The CWU’s eight-point list of proposals offered as the framework for a negotiated agreement with Kretinsky makes this clear. They include the fob-off call for “harmonisation of new entrant’s terms and conditions” within a totally unspecified “agreed time frame”. “We need to work on the basis that it is likely the government will clear the takeover bid from the perspective of the national security investigation,” their statement reads. Key, busy dates for Royal Mail were targeted by the CWU to cause maximum disruption. Walkouts took place on the busy online shopping days of Cyber Monday and Black Friday. The dispute between Royal Mail and staff represented by the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has officially come to an end after months of bitter exchanges.