15/12/2019
Royal Mail offered CWU a deal to avoid Christmas time strikes
Motivated by the problems that occurred in previous years, the executives of Royal Mail offered a deal to CWU in order to prevent strikes in the time of Christmas and Black Friday. In the previous years, this used to happen exactly at these times and it caused some serious damage to Royal Mail. They wish to resolve the dispute in a peaceful manner this time, but they insist on keeping their operations uninterrupted during the critical period of the peak sales season.
Why this move is important?
This move is important news for several reasons and from several important aspects. Strikes at Royal Mail during the Christmas and Black Friday season often damaged not only the reputation of the company but also caused a lot of strife to the sellers and a lot of frustration to the shoppers, bringing the overall atmosphere in eCommerce sector down.
This already resulted in many vendors looking for alternative shipping and delivery options apart from the Royal Mail, in order to avoid losses due to the broken fulfillment chain in the critical period of the year.
For the shoppers, this meant a lot of orders not reaching their destination in time and a lot of frustration generated in this way.
The financial losses on all sides were significant, and the CWU used this as leverage in order to get their demands met.
This year, Royal Mail is looking to remedy the situation. They are asking CWU to sign a legally binding document that there will be no strikes in the said period, and they offered to approach the negotiations with an open mind, and without pre-set boundaries, right after the peak sales season is over.
It is left to be seen whether CWU will accept this offer, but it would be in the best interest of all parties involved that the solution is found.
Hopefully, this will be a year where vendors are not left out in the cold due to the strikes in a critical period of the year.