PR Week Echo Columns

The Royal Mail appeared to be caught between a rock and a hard place last week as the breakdown in negotiations with the Communication Workers Union (CWU) led to a call for strike action on 29th July, the first national strike for over a decade. "Posties plot 24-hour national walkout" (Precisionmarketing.co.uk, 22/6). Royal Mail executives asserted that the 2.5% pay offer was fair, modernisation plans essential and any industrial action would only serve to hurt the business further. Chairman Allan Leighton left little doubt over the repercussions of a failure to change: "less pay, fewer jobs, worse pensions for postmen and women and a bleak future for the Royal Mail" (Telegraph, 22/6).

It was a view that appeared to be supported by the figures, with Royal Mail reporting a loss of 40% of its business post market, since it was opened to competition last year; news that was compounded by Amazon's decision to end its £8 million contract with the organisation. The Scotsman referred to CWU's strategy as "Strking a senseless blow" (22/6), while even the Guardian in its leader column asserted that "The CWU's action can only make the cuts, when they come, even worse" (22/6). Put brutally by one reader: "Modernise or die" (Ian, Horsham, Daily Telegraph, 22/6).