Royal Mail have announced that they will consult on 6,000 redundancies due to financial losses amid the “impact of industrial action.”
Royal Mail has stressed that planned job cut cannot be avoided and the Communications Workers Union (CWU) have condemned the move.
Dave Ward of the CWU blamed Royal Mail of “gross mismanagement and a failed business agenda.”
Royal Mail said the planned job cuts are in response to the “impact of industrial action, delays in delivering agreed productivity improvements and lower parcel volumes.”
Royal Mail chief executive Simon Thompson said, “This is a very sad day. I regret that we are announcing these job losses.
“We will do all we can to avoid compulsory redundancies and support everyone affected.
“We have announced today losses of £219 million in the first half of the year. Each strike day weakens our financial situation.
“The CWU’s decision to choose damaging strike action over resolution regrettably increases the risk of further headcount reductions.”
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.”
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