Royal Mail, part of International Distributions Services PLC (LSE:IDS), has extended talks with its main trade union over a potential pay deal in order to try and avoid strikes planned for later this month.
A spokesman for the Communication Workers Union (CWU) said the union "recognises progress in recent negotiations has been made in some aspects [but] Royal Mail management failed to put any commitments into writing".
The union had served legal notice that the first of two more 48-hour walkouts could start next Thursday, 24 November and run into the key 'black Friday' shopping event, having previously withdrawn strikes planned for last week as a concession to enter meetings with company management this week, overseen by the ACAS arbitration service, to try and reach a deal on pay and conditions.
Earlier this month the CWU rejected as "derisory" a 7% two-year pay increase, which the company called a 9% 'pay for change' offer.
Last night, Royal Mail told media the ACAS talks, which had been scheduled to finish on Tuesday, are continuing "to allow more time for a resolution to be reached".
A spokesman for the company said "time is tight" and if strikes go ahead "they will cause more damage to the business and make our improved 9% pay offer over two years less affordable."
Parent company IDS confirmed today that it lost £163mln in the first half of the year, compared to a profit of £311mln this time last year and profits of £758mln for the whole of last year.
It said the impact of three days of industrial action in the first half of the year on adjusted operating profit was around £70mln with the further five days of action in October estimated to have cost another £30mln.
CWU general secretary Dave Ward said having made record profits in the past year the business was only making losses due to "gross mismanagement".
He said senior leadership of Royal Mail "have been treating employees, union representatives or future investors with a lack of integrity and transparency" and had made "dramatic errors of judgement" in threatening 10,000 job losses on striking workers, abandoning previous employment agreements and handing over £567mln in shareholder returns "while neglecting the pay of employees who generated that profit".
He said: “We firmly believe these reckless decisions have been informed by power struggles in the boardroom, in the full knowledge of a potential future takeover bid – backed up by the government’s green-lighting of VESA to increase their shareholding."
The CWU has said that one of the demands the company is making is for Royal Mail drivers to accept 'Uber-style' gig economy contracts.