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Royal Mail says strikes have cost it £200m

The owner of Royal Mail says the recent wave of strikes at the postal firm have cost it £200m so far. The row with the Communication Workers Union over pay and conditions has led to 18 days of walkouts since August. Royal Mail also said the number of voluntary redundancies it needed to hit job cut targets would be much lower than first expected.

The number would be “significantly” less than the 5,000-6,000 it forecast before, partly due to staff turnover.
The dispute with the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has been going on since the summer, and seven days of strikes in December led Royal Mail to bring forward its last-suggested posting dates for Christmas mail.

However, the company said that up to 12,500 CWU employees had returned to work on strike days. About 115,000 CWU workers have been involved in the walkouts. It also said that “robust contingency planning” meant it delivered more than 110 million parcels and 600 million letters in December.

Royal Mail owner International Distributions Services said the letter and parcels business had lost £295m in the nine months to the end of December.
Revenues in the nine-month period fell 12.8% from the year before. This was partly down to the strike action but also caused by a continued fall in the number of letters being sent and “weaker retail trends”. The dispute with the CWU is continuing, and the union began its third ballot for industrial action this week.

Royal Mail

Like other current industrial action, such as the disputes in the railways and the NHS, pay is a key issue, with workers seeking wage rises as the cost of living soars.

Inflation – the rate at which prices rise – is currently at the highest level for about 40 years. Royal Mail has offered a pay deal it says is worth up to 9% over 18 months – but the CWU wants more given the rate of inflation

The union also objects to proposed changes to working conditions, such as ending a number of allowances and the introduction of compulsory Sunday working. As well as the dispute with the CWU, Royal Mail is also trying to tackle problems caused by a cyber-attack.

The attack meant the firm was initially unable to send letters and parcels overseas While it is now accepting new letters for overseas, it has been still advising people not to send new parcels internationally for now, something that has been hitting many small businesses.

Source: BBC

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