Postal workers union CWU has responded defiantly to an announcement by Royal Mail’s parent company International Distribution Services PLC’s that they plan to slash up to SIX THOUSAND jobs due to mounting losses.
The union says Royal Mail’s announcement is nothing more than ‘their latest misjudged scare tactic to threaten members into submission’.
CWU said: ‘We (CWU) will meet Royal Mail Group today because we continue to act in good faith. We will also bring you a fuller update from the unions leadership later as well.’
CWU General Secretary Dave Ward said: “The announcement is the result of gross mismanagement and a failed business agenda of ending daily deliveries, a wholesale levelling-down of the terms, pay and conditions of postal workers, and turning Royal Mail into a gig economy style parcel courier.
“What the company should be doing is abandoning its asset-stripping strategy and building the future based on utilising the competitive edge it already has in its deliveries to 32 million addresses across the country.
“The CWU is calling for an urgent meeting with the Board and will put forward an alternative business plan at that meeting.
“This announcement is holding postal workers to ransom for taking legal industrial action against a business approach that is not in the interests of workers, customers or the future of Royal Mail. This is no way to build a company.”
Royal Mail postal workers are striking today in a dispute over pay.It is the first of four days of planned industrial action, with further walkouts also scheduled for 31 August and 8 and 9 September.
Letters will not be delivered on strike days and some parcels will be delayed.
Posties overwhelmingly rejected a pay increase offer of 5.5% with conditions attached. The CWU union, which represents the postal workers, is calling for a pay rise that more closely reflects the current rate of inflation.
Royal Mail has apologised to customers and said it has contingency plans to minimise the disruption.
It said: “We’re really sorry for the disruption that this strike action is likely to cause to you. We want to reassure you we will do everything we can to minimise disruption and get our services back to normal as quickly as possible.
“Royal Mail has well-developed contingency plans, but they cannot fully replace the daily efforts of its frontline workforce. We will be doing what we can to keep services running, but customers should expect significant disruption.”
In a statement issued yesterday, Royal Mail said: ‘The CWU has informed Royal Mail that they will call upon their members to undertake strike action on the following dates:26 and 31 August and 8 and 9 September 2022.
‘Royal Mail believes there are no grounds for industrial action. Royal Mail is ready to talk further with the CWU to try to avert damaging industrial action but it must be about both change and pay.
‘We have contingency plans in place, and will be working hard to minimise disruption and get our services back to normal as soon as we can to keep people, businesses and the country connected. Meanwhile you can continue to send your parcels and letters and we would encourage you to post early in advance of these dates.’
CWU Scotland no2 Branch Secretary Gary Clark said: “I have said a lot about our dispute with Royal Mail and the reasons for strike action but it really comes down to greedy management and shareholders who want to drive our membership into the ground.
“Some of our members are already using food banks but it’s even further that the physical nature of the job now it will mean many members will suffer in the years to come and in retirement too.
“We must fight like we have never fought before for now but also for the future
“This will be a constant battle and we must now also fight for renationalisation and take the greed of capitalism out of our business – only then can we go forward and property look after the long term future of all our members.”
Chosen by HRH The Prince of Wales, the eight winning designs will feature on Royal Mail Special Stamps
· The winners are:
– Logan Pearson, Bury CofE High School
– Isabella Grover, Creswick Primary School
– Shachow Ali, Flint High School
– Ishan Bains, Abbey CofE Infant School
– Alfie Craddock, The Hereford Academy
– Jessica Roberts, Flint High School
– Raphael Valle Martin, Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys
– Connie Stuart, Litcham School
· The final designs showcase the children’s heroes from all walks of life; from bus and delivery drivers to food bank volunteers, NHS workers and vaccine scientists
· The winning designs were chosen from 606,049 entries – securing Royal Mail a world record title for the largest postage stamp design competition
Over the coming weeks each winner will have a special dedicated postmark that will celebrate their achievement. The postmark will be applied to stamped mail delivered to addresses nationwide
All eight winning designs were approved by HM The Queen
The stamps will be available to pre-order from today (11 March) at www.royalmail.com/heroes and by phone on 03457 641 641. They will be available on general sale from 23 March.
Royal Mail today revealed the winning eight designs in their Heroes of the Pandemic stamp design competition.
The winning artists and their designs are:
Logan Pearson, Bury CofE High School
Isabella Grover, Creswick Primary School
Shachow Ali, Flint High School
Ishan Bains, Abbey C of E Infant School
Alfie Craddock, The Hereford Academy
Raphael Valle Martin, Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys
Connie Stuart, Litcham School
Last spring, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Royal Mail Chief Executive, Simon Thompson launched a special stamp design competition. School-aged children across the UK were invited to design a postage stamp featuring their own hero or heroes of the Covid pandemic.
The response was unprecedented. Having received a world record-breaking 606,049 entries, regional judges including retired teachers carefully selected 120 regional finalists. From this, a special panel of judges, including the Prime Minister and Baroness Floella Benjamin, picked 24 regional winners. The final eight winning designs were personally selected by HRH The Prince of Wales, with the finished stamps approved by Her Majesty The Queen.
Entries from across the UK celebrated a wide range of heroes, including: NHS workers; parents; carers; cleaning staff; teachers; supermarket workers; public transport staff and delivery drivers. Also depicted on the designs were many volunteers who have helped in their local communities or raised money for charity, such as Captain Sir Tom Moore.
Simon Thompson, Royal Mail CEO, said: “As we approach the second anniversary of the first lockdown, it’s fitting that the nation’s children have taken the lead in celebrating the heroes of the pandemic. They have captured the resilience and determination of the British people in eight drawings. I think they look great!”
In addition, to mark their success, a special postmark will feature on stamped mail delivered to addresses nationwide. Each child will have their name included on their own congratulatory postmark over the coming weeks.
This is only the fifth time in the company’s 500-year history that children have designed Christmas stamps.
The winners will receive £1000 in high-street vouchers and £1000 for their respective schools.
The stamps will be available to pre-order from today (11 March) at www.royalmail.com/heroes and by phone on 03457 641 641.
They will be available on general sale from 23 March.
Your readers will have seen that our ‘every day’ stamps are changing. We are adding unique barcodes to stamps to pave the way for innovative services for our customers and to enhance the security of the postal service. We are encouraging customers to find and use-up any non-barcoded stamps before 31 January 2023. However, if customers are unable to use them up by then, we will exchange them for barcoded stamps completely free of charge.
Our ‘Swap Out’ scheme will open on 31 March 2022. Customers will be able to print out a form from our website, call our Customer Experience team to ask for one or pick one up from their local Delivery Office’s Customer Service Point.
More details about our ‘Swap Out’ scheme will be announced soon, but in the meantime please be assured that all existing stamps remain valid for postage in the usual way.
I hope parents will encourage their children to take part in Royal Mail’s stamp design competition, to honour the heroes of the pandemic. The competition is open to children, aged 4 to 14. Eight designs will be chosen to become stamps which will be on sale across the UK.
Children may choose to illustrate frontline workers in health or social care.
They may want to celebrate other key workers who have kept the country going, such as refuse collectors, cleaners, teachers, supermarket workers, public transport staff, delivery drivers or, indeed, postmen and postwomen.
Or they might highlight the volunteers who have helped in their local communities or raised money for charity, such as Captain Sir Tom Moore.
The competition is open until Friday 28 May. A special panel of judges will select the winners.
As with all Special Stamps, the final eight designs will be sent to The Queen before they can be printed and issued as stamps. The winners will be announced in the Autumn.
New research launched in line with National Apprenticeship Week (8-14 February) has revealed that more than two-thirds (67 per cent) of respondents agreed* that an apprenticeship is as valuable, and provides a young person with equal future prospects, as a university degree.
This finding highlights a significant improvement in the perceptions of apprenticeships and solidifies the Government’s strategy in achieving greater parity between further education (FE) and higher education.
The research, commissioned by independent training provider, Babington, showed a significant improvement in the perceived value of apprenticeships in comparison to previous years; a 2016 report found that only 24 per cent of young people believed an apprenticeship could give them a better chance of getting a good job than going to university.
This is a positive step towards understanding the value that apprenticeships provide not only for individuals, but for employers and the economy. This is especially true in light of the current pandemic, in which FE will play a significant role in building a skilled workforce to safeguard our economic recovery and long-term growth.
However, there remains a challenge and a lack of confidence in how this translates to employment opportunities, particularly when it comes to recruitment. The research also uncovered that 43 per cent of 16-24-year-olds agree* that an employer would favour a university degree over an apprenticeship.
These findings suggest that while perceptions are improving within society, and positivity surrounding apprenticeships is growing, the Government and employers must work in tandem to develop recruitment practices which expel any bias towards university degrees. This collaboration will better empower learners to build skills through their apprenticeships and secure employment that will support long-term career development.
David Marsh, CEO of Babington, said: “It is clear that the efforts of all of those within the further education (FE) sector are paying off and the Government’s strategy in encouraging apprenticeships is working.
“However, what we’re now seeing is a disconnect with employer recruitment which could have an impact on those individuals considering an apprenticeship and how it might affect their long-term career prospects.
“Therefore, we now need to focus on supporting a much wider cultural shift amongst employers and recruitment teams to ensure the parity of apprenticeships is considered at every level.
“After all, if we are to effectively embed an employer-centric skills system then we need to continue working on changing behaviours and practices and recognise the multitude of benefits and skills which apprentices can offer.”
Tracy Fairhurst, Head of Apprenticeships, Royal Mail said:“We value apprenticeships at all levels as a hugely beneficial tool to develop talent within our organisation. There are a wide range of Higher and Degree Apprenticeships available to support career development and provide a true earn while you learn opportunity as an alternative to the traditional fulltime study at university.
“There are tangible benefits for both employer and apprentice – the apprentice gets to know the business and the sector in depth and can see the visible impact of applying learning. For the employer, there are commercial and bottom-line benefits from synoptic projects and fresh thinking.
“I would encourage any employer to think widely about options to fill a role to make sure you get the best return on your people investment and apprenticeships are often the obvious choice. We intend to do far more about achieving a more balanced approach to accessing talent pools based on the very positive results we are seeing so far.”
Ann Bridges, L&D Manager at M&S said:“Our apprenticeship programmes are a vital part of our recruitment and talent strategy. For apprentices, they offer the perfect foundations to kickstart a career in retail; while for M&S, they serve to strengthen our skills & talent pipeline.
“Alongside partner Babington, in November we launched retail’s first level three data technician apprenticeship, which teaches M&S colleagues the fundamentals of how to manipulate and scrutinise data, and translate it into valuable insights that the business can act upon.
“Programmes such as this are a key way we’ll continue to grow our digital & data capabilities and accelerate our transformation to become a digital first retailer.”
Post workers’ union CWU has criticised a “reckless” Royal Mail decision to bring back shared delivery vans, saying that the union’s first priority is to “protect postal workers’ lives”.
Speaking to around 20,000 CWU members on a Facebook session, deputy general secretary for the postal sector Terry Pullinger accused Royal Mail management of basing workplace health and safety decisions on economic worries in the build-up to Christmas, saying that the decision had “operational overtones”.
He added that the company is “going against everything they supported at the start of this pandemic,” and criticised the timing of the decision.
“In the last couple of weeks, the landscape has drastically changed. It’s getting worse, with areas of this country getting shut down. To now make the move to put two people back in the van is reckless.”
Commenting on the shared vans policy, he said the company was “asking us to put their name on it. We will not do that. Our priority is to protect postal workers’ lives. We want to keep you safe, your workplace safe and your family safe.
“Every single person should be at high alert to make sure this virus does not spread to postal workers.”
He asked union reps to share the “no to shared vans” message throughout Royal Mail workplaces.
The CWU is also calling on Royal Mail to be “honest” over whether workers sharing vans will receive full sick pay if they are forced to self-isolate.
CWU Acting Assistant Secretary Carl Maden has demanded clarity from management after Royal Mail returned to van sharing practices on Monday.
The stance, which management insists is a purely voluntary role for workers who feel comfortable sharing vehicles, was opposed by the CWU.
CWU Acting Assistant Secretary Carl Maden said: “At a time when Covid-19 cases are increasing and further lock downs are in the pipeline, the CWU did not agree with van sharing – however, Royal Mail have gone ahead with it.
“Therefore, I have asked Royal Mail to guarantee anyone who volunteers will have full sick pay.”
Carl pointed out a recent Royal Mail document sent to managers stated the provision of enhanced sick pay is “dependent on the absence not being caused by or aggravated by the employee”.
The document goes on to say: “Where, in the reasonable view of the company, there is evidence of an employee’s disregard for public health guidance which then leads to them needing to self-isolate, Royal Mail Sick Pay will not be paid.”
Furthermore, in a meeting last Friday which attended by five directors/senior managers, Carl asked them to confirm whether full sick pay would be paid to members forced to self-isolate after volunteering for van sharing roles.
He also asked them to release a communication explaining any circumstances where sick pay will not be paid.
At the time of writing, nothing has been received from Royal Mail.
Carl called on Royal Mail to publish a statement as soon as possible, so members can make informed decisions about volunteering in vans.
He said: “We want guaranteed full sick pay and assurances any absence will not count against you on an attendance review or consideration of dismissal”, and added the union also wants those guarantees applied to members working in Fleet services.
He added: “I am sure I will be accused of scaremongering. However, all Royal Mail have to do is publish a document which states clearly: ‘if you have to self-isolate due to van sharing, full sick pay will be paid and the absence will not count against you within the attendance agreement or stipulate when sick pay will not be paid.’
“This would be an honest position.”
Carl also reminded workers they are entitled to read risk assessments and safe systems of work, and managers are obliged to provide you with a copy if requested.
