Royal Mail is reportedly planning to slash up to a quarter of its workforce – up to 40,000 staff – in the next five years, as the postal operator braces itself for the double whammy of mail volume decline and privatisation.
It is understood chief executive Moya Green is putting the finishing touches to a new business plan with the Government, as the organisation tries to make itself more attractive to potential suitors.
Royal Mail is the second largest employer in the UK after the NHS. But its workforce has already been cut by 65,000 since 2002, and currently stands at 165,000.
The Communication Workers Union already has an agreement in place with the postal operator to cut staff by 8,000 a year until 2013, through natural wastage and voluntary redundancy. Any sharp increase in cutbacks is likely to break that deal and lead to enforced redundancies, triggering the prospect of a highly damaging national postal strike.
Workers in London have already balloted for industrial action as they claim the cuts in the capital are already breaking the existing agreement. Meanwhile there have been claims that the cuts are affecting services.
A spokesman for Royal Mail refused to comment on the move, other that than saying that the postal operator “has always been clear that Royal Mail would be a smaller and more efficient company over time”.
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