Potential disruption to post as Royal Mail workers considering strike action over ‘fire and rehire’

Royal Mail is risking a nationwide strike over plans to sack nearly 1,000 managers and bring in lower rates of pay in another case of ‘fire and rehire’, Unite the Union announced this week.

Royal Mail is looking to introduce a new band for managers which not only would pay less than they do now.

This new band would also mean that the managers’ salaries would be capped, eroding their value year-on-year, while cutting hundreds of existing postal manager jobs – akin to fire and rehire, according to the union.

A strike would hit the letter and parcel services across the UK as it would mean that over 3,000 Royal Mail members at 1,500 workplaces would walk out, as soon as this month.

Unite the union claimed that the job cuts are driven by shareholder greed, with the service returning a record £311 million in profits only months ago, and that the business’s real plan is to eventually cut the six day delivery service altogether and move to the three day service model found in some European countries such as Denmark.

In 2021, the Royal Mail cut 1,600 jobs, leaving the service seriously understaffed. Unite says that the company is already struggling to make the quality targets on delivery and service set by the regulator Ofcom and cannot afford to shed yet more business-critical jobs.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Royal Mail has no excuse for announcing these job cuts, especially at the same time as introducing ‘new’ bands on lower pay. That is just ‘fire and rehire’.

“They are not even losing money. Royal Mail’s private shareholders are doing very nicely out of the UK. This is shameless boardroom greed looking to ruin a great UK name and a 500-year old essential service.

“Our members are determined to prevent this destruction and they have the full backing of their union every step of the way.”

Unite members have revealed in a survey that the current service is built on unpaid work by the postal managers and so it can ill-afford to lose 1,000 from the workforce.

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Workers at Royal Mail regularly go without lunch breaks, work unpaid at weekends and even forego annual leave to provide the public with a service, the union says.

Unite is currently preparing an industrial action ballot, which would see strikes begin as soon as April, after an initial consultation with its membership found almost seven in ten (67 per cent on an 82 per cent turnout) backed strike action.

Unite says that their members’ position has hardened in recent weeks because the employers “kept moving the goalposts” during negotiations on the proposed changes.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “We are disappointed Unite is preparing to ballot its members. The consultation on this restructure has been progressing well over the last two months. We are now moving the consultation to the next phase so we are unsure why Unite has decided to seek a ballot at this time.

“From the outset we have been committed to conducting this process carefully and sensitively, working closely with our people and our trade unions.

“The proposals are designed to simplify and streamline our operational structures to ensure an improved focus on local performance, and devolve more accountability and flexibility to frontline operational managers.

“We firmly believe this change will deliver a number of benefits for our managers and our customers and will be a significant step forward in the reinvention of Royal Mail.”