Royal Mail Woes Continue As Further Strike Action Planned For October 2022
Royal Mail has been hit with a further setback as the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has called 3 further strike dates spread throughout October. There has been no further resolution between Royal Mail and the workers union which is leading to more strike action at the worst possible time for the postage company.
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The CWU is legally required to give Royal Mail a minimum of 14 days’ formal notice before taking strike action and formal notice has been given from the CWU for the following dates:
- Thursday 13 October 2022
- Thursday 20 October 2022
- Tuesday 25 October 2022
The first date of strike action takes place most likely without coincidence, the day following the second Amazon Prime Day of 2022. While Amazon will likely continue to deliver most of its own products over that period, there will still be increased volume hitting the Royal Mail network which will now be backlogged for an additional day.
As always we encourage any sellers in the UK or US that are likely to be impacted by this strike action to plan accordingly and put contingencies in place to reduce any potential impact on your business.
Further Strike Action in November Possible
The CWU knows that this time of the year puts the union in a much stronger position when it comes to the negotiation table. October, November, and December are all peak shipping times, and causing disruption throughout Q4 will have the most impact on Royal Mail.
The CWU has also publicly announced further dates for strike action throughout November, however, Royal Mail has not received the required formal notification of these dates. The CWU has communicated they intend to take one day of national strike action on Monday 28 November, often referred to as Cyber Monday, the first day after the black Friday weekend.
Then a series of strikes which if they take place would affect different parts of our operational and administrative network on different days.
Potential Royal Mail Strike Action 2 November – 2 December
| Network & National Distribution | 2, 8, 14, 23, 30 November |
| Parcel and letter processing and distribution Royal Mail international parcel and letter services Collections (customer, Post Office, postbox) | 3, 9, 15, 24 November & 1 December |
| Parcel and letter deliveries | 4, 10, 16, 25 November, and 2 December |
If a resolution is met before these dates then it stands to reason that the strike action will not go ahead, but so far neither side has been willing to concede in negotiation talks so far. With no end in sight it is unclear how much longer Royal Mail strike action is going to continue.
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Dave Furness
Dave is a Co-Founder of eSeller365. For over 10 years he has been involved with eCommerce with a particular interest in the marketplaces and the huge opportunities available for sellers when utilizing a multi-channel strategy. After a year of being the UK’s youngest eCommerce consultant, he built an education platform called UnderstandingE that showed the world how to utilize Magento as the “Third Generation of Multi-Channel software”.
Dave has also created a YouTube channel dedicated to entrepreneurship and eCommerce as well as a podcast dedicated to mental health awareness. When Dave isn’t working his main interests include learning and playing Chess, researching the Crypto and NFT space, and trying to find the nearest beach.