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Royal Mail has proposed slicing salaries for brand spanking new postal staff and recruiting extra non permanent workers, risking additional backlash because it threatens to slash as much as 10,000 full-time roles.
Dave Ward, common secretary on the Communication Employees Union, advised the Monetary Instances that Royal Mail had steered slicing salaries for brand spanking new workers by a few fifth, from roughly £25,000 to £20,000.
A Royal Mail spokesperson confirmed that in conferences this week it had advised the union it wanted “to take a look at completely different salaries for brand spanking new starters”.
The corporate already employs some impartial contractors however is contemplating whether or not they should make up the next proportion of workers, the spokesperson added.
The proposals are the most recent signal of the looming disaster going through Royal Mail because it races to chop prices within the face of competitors from youthful opponents that depend on non permanent supply workers with much less beneficiant salaries and employment phrases.
On Friday morning, not lengthy after postal staff started 19 days of strike motion over pay and circumstances, Royal Mail mentioned it deliberate to axe about 5,000 roles by March and the equal of about 10,000 positions by August subsequent yr. The corporate requires “pressing change” and a “modernisation of working practices”, it warned.
Ward mentioned the union supported change, including it had by no means steered Royal Mail “may be doing what we did 20 years in the past and assume we will maintain jobs on this business”.
However the Royal Mail spokesperson mentioned the CWU had refused to have interaction in formal negotiations. Proposals on wage cuts and non permanent workers had not been made formally and had been a part of “broad discussions” on adjustments that may very well be made, the individual added.
Royal Mail, which was launched as a public service in 1635 and privatised in 2013, on Friday reported a first-half adjusted working lack of £219mn, down from a £235mn revenue throughout the identical interval final yr as strike motion and a decline in parcel volumes hit gross sales.
The group mentioned it anticipated a full-year adjusted working lack of about £350mn.
The corporate’s share value fell as a lot as 10 per cent, extending its slide for the yr to 55 per cent.
In March, administration threatened a separation of the manufacturers Royal Mail and GLS, its worldwide parcel-sorting enterprise that has remained worthwhile even because the UK enterprise suffers.
Ward mentioned a break up would quantity to “asset stripping” that might go away staff within the UK enterprise extra weak.
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