Postman ‘financially crippled’ as he has wage slashed on the job amid Royal Mail ‘cuts’

A Brummie postman has been ‘financially crippled’ by a Royal Mail wage cut and is now fearing for his future amid the cost-of-living crisis. Mark Hewitt, aged 37, from Marston Green, has seen his hourly wage reduced by £1.87, dropping from £13.37 to £11.50, at a time when food and energy prices have soared.

Dad-of-three Mr Hewitt is contracted to work 27.5 hours per week and claims he will now ‘only be able to afford rent’. He claims Royal Mail keeps promising ‘over time and extra shifts’ – but managers ‘fail to tell him there is none’ before turning up to work.

And he claims the depot he works at, in Tameside Drive, Castle Bromwich, has a ‘rat problem’ and parcels end up getting delivered ‘half-chewed’ to people’s homes. Mr Hewitt said: “I was quite happy at the start but six weeks in they have decided to knock my wage down £1.80 per hour, which has basically crippled me.

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“They promised me a lot of shifts and overtime, but in the last month I have turned up four times and been told there is no work for me. They have even let me get to work and not even bothered to call me.

“That is a bit of a head-doer. There is a lot that goes on there, to be honest.”

Mr Hewitt works for Royal Mail via the agency Pertemps. He started his job at the beginning of January, but recently ‘received a phone call’ to say his wage was dropping on March 1.

He continued: “I don’t know what I’m going to do, to be perfectly honest. I have had conversations with the agency, I know they are not happy with Royal Mail.

“They send you a shift on a weekly basis, so, every week, they send me six shifts and I think, great, I’m in for six days, so I can live on that. But it is never, ever, the six days.

“There is never the overtime that they promise. They keep telling me, if I keep working at it, I will get a permanent role. But I have been told again that there is no permanent role, and there will be no permanent role, because of what the company is going through.

“I’m a bit nervous. It is putting me in a rock and a hard place. Do I leave? Do I stay?

“I don’t know what to do and when you are getting 25 hours in a week, it basically pays my rent, and then nothing else. We are struggling to heat the house and afford everything, on top of my small wage.

“I have a partner and children. It is putting more pressure on my partner, which isn’t good, you know, causing issues at home.

“A lot of people have been here for 20 years and stuff and even they are like, what are you supposed to do? If they don’t increase the hours, people will have to take on second jobs.”

Before Mr Hewitt became a postman earlier this year, he was working for a drug and alcohol charity. He used to collect donations and deliver furniture to those in need but he said the charity ‘bottomed out and closed’ due to Covid.

In his current job, he claims ‘a lot of workers’ are not happy with the situation. He added: “A lot of people are unhappy with what is going on, anyway.

“They have got a big rat problem in the depot I’m at but they are not doing anything about it because they say ‘the budget’. There has parcels been chewed through, we are turning up to peoples’ houses with half-eaten parcels saying ‘do you still want this?’ It is just embarrassing.

“Pertemps deal with Royal Mail nationwide, so I think there will be many, many more people who have had the same phone call as me.” In response to the story, a Royal Mail spokesperson said temporary workers have wage fluctuations throughout the year.

Workers get paid more during the Christmas period, but less afterwards. The spokesperson said: “The rates we pay our temporary workers do change at certain points each year, to reflect seasonal fluctuations in workload and demand.”

In response to claims about a rat problem at the Castle Bromwich depot, Royal Mail said it has brought in ‘pest control’ which the company believe has eradicated the problem. The spokesperson added: “We are confident that our pest control contractor has successfully alleviated a possible rat problem in one room at our Castle Bromwich Delivery Office.

“The room is not one in which parcels are kept, and we believe that only item of mail was potentially affected. On those rare occasions on which rats might ever contaminate any item of mail, our policy is to inform the customer concerned and to pay compensation.

“We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused to customers by this situation.” Pertemps was approached for comment.

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