Opening Quote: Royal Mail turns to the courts in bid to block strike

The Royal Mail has turned to the courts to try and block its workers from taking industrial action over Christmas and in the run up to the general election.

The postal service has made an application to the High Court to try and block the Communication Workers Union’s plan for industrial action. It said it believes there were potential irregularities in the ballot that would render it unlawful and that it had evidence of workers being encouraged to open their ballot papers on site with their colleagues, rather than at home, and filming or taking pictures of them doing so before posting their ballots together at workplace postboxes.

The Communication Workers Union said last month that on a turnout of more than three-quarters of its 110,000 members, 97.1 per cent backed the move.

It said in a statement on Twitter on Friday that the dispute “will only be settled in serious negotiations not in court rooms.”

The vote threatens the first nationwide walkouts at Royal Mail in a decade, with the potential to cause serious disruption during its peak delivery period before the festive holiday.

Rico Back, the chief executive who joined the company in June 2018, has outlined a strategy designed to secure Royal Mail’s future, including a cut in dividend payments in order to help fund a £1.8bn, five-year investment drive designed to harness growth in parcels.

The CWU, however, claims the plans, which involve the introduction of new technology, could result in up to 50,000 job losses.

Briefly 

KPMG has instructed property agents JLL to seek a new tenant for its lavish private members’ club in Mayfair known as Number Twenty after the accounting firm’s UK chairman personally pushed to offload the property. The club opened in 2015 at 20 Grosvenor Street and offers free membership to partners, executives and clients.

Job moves

Phoenix, the FTSE 100 insurance company, said this morning that Clive Bannister, its chief executive, will retire on 10 March after its results and he will be replaced by Andy Briggs, who left Aviva earlier this year.

Beyond the Square Mile 

Bankers for Saudi Aramco’s initial public offering have dangled the possibility of bonus payouts that could take the company’s annual dividend past $100bn in an effort to woo investors for a flotation tipped to be the biggest ever. In a report produced for investors and seen by the Financial Times, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said shareholder payouts could be far greater than the promised minimum annual dividend of $75bn during the next five years.

Profits at Disney, which owns the Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars franchises as well as TV channels like ESPN and ABC, sank during the final quarter before its new streaming service debuts, as the world’s largest media company makes a costly transition towards online entertainment.

Gap, the owner of Banana Republic and Old Navy, said on Thursday its chief executive Art Peck would step down as it struggles to win back customers amid softer sales. Shares in the company dropped more than 8 per cent in after-hours trading.

Closing quote — essential comment before you go

Office life
Workplace romances were once tolerated — indeed many people met their spouses as a result of an office liaison — yet the firing this week of Steve Easterbrook, the McDonald’s chief executive, for violating company policy after engaging in a relationship with a colleague shows how attitudes have changed. But companies take a very difference approach to the issue, as this piece explains.

Lombard 
Simon Dingemans, the new chair of the Financial Reporting Council, the audit watchdog, has captured the mood with his Big Four break-up plan.