Royal Mail staff will go ahead with strikes in the run-up to the festive period as its main trade union rejected a slightly improved pay deal.
Reports overnight said Royal Mail, part of International Distributions Services PLC (LSE:IDS) (IDS), had offered a 9% pay rise spread over 18 months as opposed to two years, which the Communication Workers Union (CWU) had requested.
The latest offer was said to be the “final and best offer”, with more ‘family friendly’ working hours and no longer forcing staff to work on Sundays.
Bosses at the postal and parcel delivery company have warned that, should the strikes go ahead, any previous offer would be withdrawn.
But the CWU, which represents 115,000 of the company's workers, rejected the deal and said the 48-hour strikes starting tomorrow and next Wednesday will go ahead.
The union said it rejected the deal as it included turning Royal Mail "into a gig economy-style parcel courier, reliant on casual labour", thousands of compulsory redundancies, a non-backdated 3.5% pay increase seen as "wholly inadequate", demands that the CWU "be removed from the workplace and transformed into a company union", later starting and finishing work hours, cuts to sick pay, removal of Sunday premium pay, and "no job security commitments at all".
CWU leaders said they had asked for an 18-month pay deal including back pay for all workers, a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies, the restoration of previously agreed processes for voluntary redundancies, a joint review of all agreements and the relationship between the CWU and Royal Mail, re-establishing the right of CWU representatives to be fully involved and able to negotiate on local revisions, and an alternative business strategy "that would see Royal Mail Group use its competitive advantage to grow as a company, instead of becoming a gig economy parcel employer".
Royal Mail's parent IDS said there was a £70mln impact on operating profit from three days of industrial action in the first half of the year with the further five days of action in October estimated to have cost another £30mln.
CWU general secretary Dave Ward said: “We are disappointed that instead of reaching a compromise to avoid major disruption, Royal Mail have chosen to pursue such an aggressive strategy.
“We will not accept that 115,000 Royal Mail workers - the people who kept us connected during the pandemic, and made millions in profit for bosses and shareholders – take such a devastating blow to their livelihoods.
“These proposals spell the end of Royal Mail as we know it, and its degradation from a national institution into an unreliable, Uber-style gig economy company."