CWU AND ROYAL MAIL GROUP AGREEMENT

CWU AND ROYAL MAIL GROUP AGREEMENT

We are pleased to announce that CWU and RMG have reached an agreement for the national deployment of USO Reform and how we move forward the equalisation of new entrants’ pay, terms and conditions.

This agreement also confirms Pay 2026 and relaunches the Rebuilding Royal Mail Part 1 & 2 agreements – that will now be delivered in full with the confirmed ongoing involvement and support of the UK Government.

The agreement (full copy attached) has been unanimously endorsed by the CWU’s Postal Executive and the key points are set out below.

USO Reform

  • It has been agreed to set aside the ODM and in acknowledging the lessons learnt from the pilot sites and feedback from our members – a new delivery model (2026), based on the union’s heavier and light delivery model will now be rolled out nationally.
  • The new delivery model introduces 3.5k new walks, 10k walks being switched to heavy and light and 6k part time to full time uplifts to support the 4 into 3 structure.
  • The agreement reaffirms the importance of job security for our members and there will be no compulsory redundancies from USO Reform and MTSF will apply to support all employees through change.
  • The agreement includes comprehensive and very robust processes and safeguards that have been put in place at local level for pre-deployment and post-deployment reviews.
  • The new processes are specifically designed to support local employees, representatives and managers being able to have a greater say and influence over how USO Reform will be deployed – with the ability to utilise their local knowledge and experience within the overall parameters set. This includes local representatives and employees having a major influence over how to fix any issues that may arise.
  • The need to have in place a fully resourced office prior to deployment and to ensure that manageable workload, quality of service and USO coverage is being achieved has been prioritised. This will be supported with strict reviews at various stages and no surplus can be confirmed until this criteria is being met on a regular basis.
  • The company has agreed that critical to the successful deployment of USO Reform is the need to deliver a quality of service improvement plan that delivers on the promise to put postal workers and customers back at the heart of everything we do. The union and the Select Committee (confirmed in writing) will continue to hold Royal Mail to account on these crucial issues.
  • The company has also agreed that critical to the successful deployment of USO Reform will be the reset of Employee and Industrial Relations. A plan for this reset will be published in the next two weeks.
  • The agreement sets out the benefits for employees of the new model which will increase the number of Saturdays off for full time and part time employees as well as the opportunity for earlier finishes on a Saturday, subject to local factors and current duty patterns.
  • A new delivery site incentive scheme will also be introduced for each office in conjunction with the roll out of USO Reform.
  • To move forward the commitment to introduce new ways of working, a pilot will be agreed as part of the roll out of USO Reform and we will encourage offices to participate in this pilot and come forward with ideas that can be of benefit to employees and the company going forward.
  • There is a comprehensive full deployment agreement which covers all aspects of how USO Reform will be deployed and you will find this at Appendix A of the attached agreement. The full agreement will be explained and you will see how it provides comprehensive safeguards and protections for our members.

Equalisation of new entrants’ pay, terms and conditions

  • The agreement acknowledges the need to refresh our approach to equalisation and confirms a first step and a process that will lead to the next step and the plan to achieving equalisation following the next formal review which will take place no later than January 2027.
  • The first step ends the practice of Royal Mail recruiting full time staff on 40 hours per week and commits the company to only employ new full-time staff on 37-hour contracts.
  • The first step also reduces the pay differential for new entrants by increasing their pay rise by 1.75% over the 3% for employees on the old contracts.
  • The first step also provides additional measures that are designed to support retention of employees.

Pay 2026

  • Branches will be aware that we had already agreed a 3-year pay deal with a reopener clause should inflation be above 3% or below 2%.  This reopener clause was also due to take into account the financial position of the business at the appropriate time.  Therefore, rather than delay a pay rise we have agreed a 3% pay increase to be introduced quickly and backdated to the 1st April and if the actual average CPI for January, February and March 2026 is above 3%, the difference will be considered for payment following successful deployment of USO Reform.

Relaunch of the Rebuilding Royal Mail Part 1 & 2 Agreements

Royal Mail have reaffirmed their commitment to delivering in full all aspects of these agreements and crucially the UK Government has agreed to monitor and support progress going forward.  This reflects the assurance the new owners gave to employees and the UK Government at the time of the takeover.

Ongoing Government Involvement and Select Committee Scrutiny

Branches will be aware that because of the support of our members and the influence of the union, the Government intervened through its tripartite meetings and separately the all party Parliamentary Select Committee has scrutinised Royal Mail’s quality of service failures.  We can all take encouragement from the fact that the ongoing involvement of the Government has been confirmed and the Chair of the Select Committee has also confirmed, in writing, that they will continue to scrutinise the need for Royal Mail to significantly improve quality of service going forward. We will explain the importance of this at today’s National Briefing and in our subsequent engagement with reps and members.  As a result you will see that the agreement confirms that we will now launch a joint campaign with the company to achieve a fairer regulatory environment and address the exploitative labour models that our competitors utilise to undercut Royal Mail.

We are confident that if this agreement is confirmed it will pave the way for serious discussions with the Government on why it is in national interest for these issues to be properly addressed.

Next Steps

We all know that for a number of years there has been major problems with customer service failures and a managerial ethos that was installed by the previous board and that has never really changed, the combination of which has led to continuing chaos in the majority of our delivery offices.  The Postal Executive is firmly of the view that the best opportunity to significantly improve quality of service and finally change the managerial ethos is by supporting this agreement and move forward with the continuing scrutiny and involvement of the Select Committee and Government.

It is now imperative that all Branches, Representatives and members have the opportunity and time to fully consider this agreement properly –  not only on the basis of how we have moved the company significantly on all the key issues – but also in its wider context around why USO Reform is necessary and why we must shift our focus to changing the role of Ofcom and create a level playing field with our competitors.

Delivering change will always be difficult but we are clearly in a stronger position to support our members under the terms of this agreement.

Finally, we will ensure full engagement with all of our representatives and members on these issues prior to a membership ballot and the approach and timetable for this will be issued in due course.  This commences today with a National Briefing on Wednesday 15th April followed by Local Reps Briefings and direct written communications with our members and at the appropriate point, a CWU Live show.

Any enquiries regarding this LTB should be addressed to the Postal Department, Hayley Ford on hford@cwu.org and General Secretary’s Department, Dawn Lynch on dlynch@cwu.org.

Yours sincerely,

Martin Walsh                                                             

Deputy General Secretary (Postal)

Dave Ward

General Secretary    

Tony Bouch    

Assistant Secretary                           

Davie Robertson      

Assistant Secretary                 

Andy Furey

Assistant Secretary                   

LTB 112.26 CWU AND ROYAL MAIL GROUP AGREEMENT

LTB 112.26 ATT Final Agreement USO Deployment and New Entrants 13th April 2026 v3

LTB 112.26 APP A USO Deployment Agreement FINALv1

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