Royal Mail and union restart talks

• 2 July 2020
• Transport / Logistics Services

Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union have agreed a programme of talks to try to resolve the current dispute.

The CWU has hailed Royal Mail’s commitment to assure ParcelForce’s role in the Royal Mail Group has been hailed as a massive success.

The aim of the talks are to develop a strategy of mutual interest to build a good future for customers, employees and the business. Immediate operational and financial challenges facing the business are also to be addressed.

According to the two parties the five key points of discussions will be:

1. The financial position of the company
2. Local revision and change activity
3. Pay
4. Operational change and the future strategy of Royal Mail, including Parcelforce
5. The potential to better use the company’s unrivalled infrastructure

The talks are set to be completed by the end of the month, with discussions of points 4 and 5 potentially extended beyond.

Speaking to over 10,000 people on Tuesday evening’s Facebook live broadcast, Dave Ward, General Secretary of the CWU, said: “We’re in a position now where we’ve made real progress. I hope you read the statement and see that the dispute has changed significantly in our favour.

“This letter couldn’t have been delivered without your support and without the company knowing that it wasn’t enough that the CEO would go, and that there must be a different direction.”
He added: “To be clear, this doesn’t mean the dispute is over.

“But it’s the right thing, we think, to get stuck into some serious talks with the company, and we have a good platform to do that.”

Terry Pullinger, Deputy General Secretary CWU said: “We’ve been in dispute for two years, and that our existing agreements had been ‘on the line,’ so although the CWU side had been encouraged by the change in company leadership, it was vital that the business made some serious movements in order to rebuild the union’s trust,” he explained, adding: “There was a lot of trust to rebuild.

“It was absolutely important that me and Dave got in the room with them and asked where we are going and this joint statement speaks volumes. It provides a platform to start us off working together and to deal in a genuine way.”