Royal Mail CEO sends email of regret as December strikes continue.

Simon Thompson CEO of Royal Mail has sent an open letter to all customer’s inboxes with important changes to Christmas final posting dates.

Because the task gets more challenging as Christmas nears. Royal mails is asking customers to send Second Class mail by 12 December and First Class by 16 December 2022.

At Royal Mail, we know this is the time of year when you rely on us most.

So we deeply regret that the Communication Workers Union (CWU) is planning further strikes on 9, 11, 14, 15, 23 and 24 December 2022.

Last week we delivered around 700,000 parcels during strike days and recovered service quickly. I want to thank personally more than 11,000 of our employees who came back to work during that last strike.

We’ll do everything we can to respond. And we’re doing everything we can to settle this dispute.

Eight months of talks with the union. A pay offer of up to 9% over 18 months. But even before the strikes we were losing £1m a day. So we can only afford that offer if the union stops resisting the changes needed to deliver what you, our customers, ask for today.

You’re sending 60% fewer letters than you used to, and the number keeps on falling. You’re sending more parcels, which you want delivered quickly, including at weekends.

We’ve also listened carefully to our employees. Existing employees who aren’t required to work Sundays won’t be required to do so. And we’re introducing family-friendly options to help with our need for more afternoon working.

We are bringing in new recruits on different contracts, but their terms, conditions and pensions will still be the best in the industry. This is not the gig economy. We have a generous voluntary redundancy scheme and are NOT making compulsory redundancies.

We are the only people who deliver a universal one-price-goes-anywhere service to the whole United Kingdom, and we know how much you need us.

We urge the CWU to call off these damaging strikes. And we’ll do everything we can to deliver Christmas.

For everybody.

Yours sincerely,

Simon Thompson
CEO, Royal Mail