Royal Mail – Keeping it on the move…

“Keep mail moving – over 900 managerial and contract drivers will move mail around the country on strike days” says Royal Mail’s customer services.

Despite not guaranteeing the Special Delivery service it is clear from this communication that they are prioritised and could therefore be a good way of sending important documents to PO box addresses…

Otherwise, if your post is very urgent we can still send your letters and parcels using a different guaranteed next working day delivery service.

Thankfully, it would seem that Royal Mail are doing their best to keep the post moving despite the industrial action.

FROM ROYAL MAIL:-

Dear Customer,

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has chosen to call further national strike action next week. The details are as follows:

Thursday 29th October

Mail Centres and Network Distribution Units – Limited processing, movement and collection of mail (if local collections performed by a Mail Centre)

Friday 30th October

Manual Data Entry Centres (MDEC) – No direct impact on mail services

Saturday 31st October

Delivery Offices – Limited delivery and collection of mail (if local collections performed by a Delivery Office)

 We are really sorry for the significant disruption and inconvenience national industrial action taken by the CWU is having on customers and for the uncertainty further announcements of CWU industrial action will cause. We are continuing to urge the CWU to call off all strike action and concentrate with us on supporting customers during the autumn and Christmas peak mail period.

 In the event this planned strike action takes place, mail services on Thursday and Saturday will be very limited and delay to the collection, sorting, distribution and delivery of mail will be inevitable.

What we will do to maintain and recover service If national industrial action takes place, Royal Mail has strong contingency plans to do all we can to keep mail moving and minimise disruption for our customers:

Keep mail moving – over 900 managerial and contract drivers will move mail around the country on strike days.

Delivering mail

We will continue to deliver premium services (Special Delivery™ and Royal Mail Tracked™) to customers throughout the week. Use of around 5000 managerial and support people – to maintain premium services, open callers’ offices and to collect mail from Post Office branches, posting boxes and customers where possible on strike days. Support the distribution of packets and parcels – we have five additional dedicated and fully staffed sorting centres to aid the distribution of goods through our network. Deploy a targeted service recovery plan – concentrate our substantial support resources in areas most affected to deliver mail after the strikes.

Collection of mail

Most collections will operate normally Monday-Friday next week. If a mail centre or collection unit located on a mail centre site performs a customer collection, these customer collections are likely

to be affected on Thursday 29th October. If performed by a delivery office, collections are likely to be affected – and very limited- on Saturday 31st October. Wherever possible we will provide more certainty to customers about the day on which their collection is likely to be affected however,

the nature of the CWU strike action means we may not be able to provide absolute certainty to all customers.

Royal Mail service teams will be contacting business collection customers early next week to advise as to how collection services will be affected and, in the event we may not be able to collect, provide

alternatives for getting mail into our network. We will be continuing to collect mail from all Post Office® branches and from posting boxes, prioritising heavily used boxes, such as those outside Post Offices®.

Delivery of mail

In most areas, mail deliveries will take place next week Monday – Friday although delivery times may be subject to some variation. On Saturday 31st October, mail deliveries in most areas will be limited to the delivery of premium services (Special Delivery™ and Royal Mail Tracked™). Where delivery offices are located on the same site as mail centres, deliveries made from these offices may be affected on Thursday 29th October but will take place on Saturday 31st October.

More information

More detailed information about mail services, including the answers to our most frequently asked questions relating to industrial action, can be found on our website at http://www.royalmail.com/serviceupdates.

Alternatively, if you are a business customer please talk to your usual Royal Mail contact or call the Business Service Helpline on 08457 950950. Residential customers can call Royal Mail Customer Service on 08457 740740.

Again we’d like to say we’re really sorry for the inconvenience we know this industrial action may cause you, your business and your customers.

Regards,

Royal Mail Customer Services