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The Communication Workers Union and Royal Mail are still locked in a bitter dispute over pay and job security, resulting in the CWU calling two national one-day strikes in recent weeks. This is the first official industrial action on a national basis for 11 years. So far, there has been no disruption to doordrop distributions as the one day strikes have taken place in the latter part of the week when deliveries are largely complete. Direct mail distributions will have experienced only minor delays given the brevity of the strikes to date.
 It appears that negotiations between the 2 parties are at a standstill, and with no resolution in sight, it is likely that further strikes will be called in the very near future. |
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Union officials only have to give 7 days warning of their intent to strike, leaving little time for agencies and advertisers to organise any kind of contingency plans. In addition, no guarantees are made about re-deploying or even recovering printed stock from the delivery points in the event of a lengthy strike.
Royal Mail booking terms and conditions state that they will not be held liable for delays, compensation or refunds due to a “Force Majeure” i.e. an event beyond their control.This includes industrial action.This catch-all clause appears to absolve Royal Mail from all responsibility - so what can advertisers expect from Royal Mail and their agencies if the industrial action continues? |
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In practice, Royal Mail does endeavour to put right what they can, but the carriage of consumer and business mail is still very much their main concern. At ARM it is our priority to be vigilant for updates and act quickly to help clients manage the impact on campaigns. We also continue to apply pressure to Royal Mail to safeguard their booked doordrop activity and spends wherever possible.
1. In the event of a 1 day strike, Royal Mail will continue to distribute items to booked sectors as normally as possible. There may be a slight delay to distribution should strikes occur on Monday – Wednesday, but deliveries should be completed during the week of the booking.
2. If prolonged striking takes place, the volumes are essentially removed from the distribution schedule for that time period. Royal Mail will attempt, where possible, to re-book sectors in the surrounding weeks. This is totally dependent on postal sector availability and there are no assurances made to advertisers. This is organised on a client by client basis, and would take into account competitor activity and time sensitive creative.
3. In the event that a booking cannot be deployed in the surrounding weeks or time sensitive material prohibits it, bookings have to be paid for as per the original contracts. Agencies have to seek reimbursement from Royal Mail.
4. Once delivered into Royal Mail, reclaiming printed stock is not always straightforward. If the stock has already been processed at the walk bundling centres, there is no guarantee of being able to reclaim all the printed matter. As such we are advising clients to deliver as late as possible (but within Royal Mail 7-14 day guidelines) to allow for notification of strikes, and to prevent early processing of stock at the depots.
5. Agreeing compensation for lost print and production costs can also be a protracted process. This is done entirely by negotiation with Royal Mail.
Written by Rachel Dixon, Media Manager at All Response Media
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