Royal Mail seeks arbitration with union to avert more strikes By Reuters

(Reuters) -Britain’s Royal Mail (LON:) is looking to avert more planned strikes by proposing to take a pay-related dispute with the labour union to arbitration or conciliation, after months of negotiations between the two parties failed to break a deadlock.

The Communication Workers Union, which represents more than 115,000 postal workers at Royal Mail, called for strikes late last month and in early September and has plans for more between Sept. 30 and Oct. 1.

The CWU did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The British postal company, which has been working on a transformation plan to shift its focus to parcels amid sliding letter volumes, said it had also informed the CWU that it wants to “modernise the ways of working with them”.

“As part of this, Royal Mail will review or serve notice on a number of historic agreements and policies which are currently being used by the CWU to frustrate transformation, and intends to move to a more modern industrial relations framework,” it said in a statement.

Royal Mail said it was making losses due to the labour dispute and that it was proposing to take its talks with the CWU to publicly funded, independent ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) to help find a resolution.