Royal Mail and CWU await mediators report
We believe that the mediation talks between the Royal Mail and
the CWU have progressed to the stage where the mediator, Professor
Lynette Harris, is preparing her report. We estimate that this could be
delivered as early as next week.
“The talks have been difficult and protracted. The next couple of weeks will be crucial to determine whether a final Agreement can be reached if we are to secure our objective in regards to our Four Pillars of Security and Pay to the point that we can genuinely build a bridge between our current Agreement and the next few years.As part of the mediation process, the external Mediator is now due to provide a final summary report setting out
- A summary of the final position of the parties
- The external Mediator’s conclusions regarding any points of dispute.
- The Mediator’s recommended solution to the issues indispute.”
– CWU
None of this is news of course and runs according to our estimated Royal Mail and CWU Mediation Process Timeline published back in October.
Retailers can be reassured that in the run up to Christmas strikes are
still extremely unlikely, although there is still a high probability of
strikes at some point, judging by the tone of the CWU who added “no
High Court Judge or third party Mediator will resolve this dispute,
ultimately it is a matter between the CWU and Royal Mail Group”.
What we know at this stage is that from the date the mediator submits
her report, the two sides have a week to meet and review the report, if
they don’t agree two weeks for further negotiations and if they still
can’t come to a resolution then this is the earliest point at which the
CWU could give notice of strike days.
What is the earliest the CWU could call a mail strike?
That all adds up to about another five weeks of legal process before the
first possible strike which takes us right up to Christmas.
Whilst it’s unlikely most of the country would support a CWU mail
workers strike, retailers and the general public will probably all
breath a sigh of relief that they will be after Christmas.
Whilst strikes are a pain, frankly the impact of a strike in January is
negligible compared to pre-Christmas. There will still be plenty of
packets and parcels flying around the country in the New Year, but the
threat of an item not arriving in time for Christmas will be gone and
it’s likely that consumers will shrug their shoulders and accept that
their credit card statement might arrive a couple of days late.not one postperson has to strike ,all we have to do is work our contracted hours and do not do overtime.
the amount of
full time jobs that have been lost and replaced by part time contracts
in the warrington delivery office means that the office is running on
overtime all year round .if this was to stop for a short time it would
have the same effect as a strike but without anyone losing any money
