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In the UK, two of UNI Post & Logistics affiliates, the CWU and UNITES, have voted overwhelmingly for strike action over attacks top their pensions. Royal Mail postal group will stop its final salary pension for all employees today, and replace it with one based on career average earnings. It has said that it needs to make radical changes to the pension plan to solve the problem it has with a £3.4 billion deficit.



However, the CWU warned that it would push for industrial action unless Royal Mail backs down from its overhaul of the pension plan. It held a consultative ballot among its 140,000 members at Royal Mail with 92 per cent of those voting, saying that they opposed the changes. The CWU ballot follows a similar vote held by Unite, which represents postal managers. That ballot produced a 85 per cent vote against the pension changes.



Dave Ward, deputy general secretary at the CWU, said: “We are now calling on Royal Mail to stop acting in undue haste and to discuss with the CWU how to solve the pension problem facing the company. After the last year of unrest Royal Mail needs to take the workforce along with them in this major change to postal workers’ terms and conditions.”