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Royal Mail said the company is battling for survival and accused a union of “peddling lies” in a strongly-worded letter to staff ahead of another round of strikes.
Postal workers will walk out on Friday and Saturday, disrupting the delivery of Christmas gifts and cards in a blow to both Royal Mail and retailers that depend on festive sales.
The Communication Workers Union began industrial action at the company in the summer. The dispute concerns pay as well as reforms to the business as people send fewer letters and more packages. The CWU has said Royal Mail wants to turn into a gig economy-style courier dependent on casual labor, meaning thousands of redundancies.
“You’re right to worry that Royal Mail is at risk,” said the letter to staff, which was sent last week. “Months of strikes have been helping our competitors to win our parcels business.”
It said the CWU had told staff that the company, which forms part of International Distributions Services Plc, plans to fire 25,000 workers. This is “an outright lie” the Royal Mail chiefs said, insisting there will be no compulsory redundancies.
The letter was signed by Chief Executive Officer Simon Thompson and eight other senior executives. It was earlier reported by the Financial Times.
“Make no mistake,” it added. “We are fighting for the life of this business.”
The CWU didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
