Royal Mail Strike Replanned by CWU Following Queen’s Funeral For 30th September 2022

Another Royal Mail strike has been called by the CWU (Communication Workers Union) following the one originally planned earlier this month which was postponed due to the Queen’s passing.

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Whilst calling off the Royal Mail strike was seen by many as the right thing to do, there has still been no resolution between the union and Royal Mail which despite ongoing talks has led to new strike dates being announced.

The CWU has announced that their workers will be striking on both Friday 30th of September and Saturday the 1st of October. Choosing these dates is of course deliberate to cause the maximum disruption to the mail network. Which will no doubt cause backlogs in the system and delay mail deliveries significantly across the country.

eBay To Protect Sellers From Royal Mail Strike Repercussions

Whilst we hope there is some breakthrough in talks soon to avoid any further Royal Mail strike action, eBay has announced that they will be putting their seller protections in place so that sellers aren’t penalized for slow deliveries due to elements outside of their control.

You can see the full statement from eBay below:

“Dear Sellers, 

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) at Royal Mail and Parcelforce has called on its members who collect, sort, and deliver parcels and mail to take strike action on Friday 30th September and Saturday 1st October 2022.

Find out more about the Royal Mail strike action here.

eBay will automatically protect your performance between Monday 26th September and Monday 10th October, for:

• Your late delivery rate, which will be removed for transactions with estimated delivery dates between the above dates
• Your “item not received” count in Service Metrics dashboard will be automatically removed. We will also remove any negative and neutral feedback relating to or arising from late or non-delivery during this period.

Please note: You may see late deliveries due to this on your seller dashboard, but they will be automatically removed within approximately 7 days. The same will apply to negative/neutral feedback. You do not need to contact Customer Support. 

There will be no expectation of deliveries on the days of Royal Mail strike action and the days will be excluded from the calculation of estimated delivery dates. 

To try and minimize disruptions for you and your buyers:

• If you already use other carriers, it is advisable to use them to send your items during this time & contact them in advance to update your forecast volumes. Please also ensure you use the carrier you specified on the listing.
  
• If you currently only use Royal Mail to send your items, then you may want to consider switching to an alternative courier during the strike period – you can access services from Evri, UPS, DPD, DHL & InPost through the eBay platform via our partner Packlink.
  
• If you buy and print your Royal Mail labels on eBay, you can easily switch to send with Evri, UPS, DPD, and DHL on eBay delivery powered by Packlink.
  
• Special Offer: For a limited time, Evri and UPS collections are being offered at no additional charge when purchasing postage labels through eBay delivery by Packlink. Read more
  
• If you buy your delivery labels elsewhere, remember to upload tracking numbers to your transactions to allow your buyers to see where their items are. By doing this you’ll also be better protected in the event of delays.

Read more information for buyers and sellers here.

As always, thank you for selling on eBay.

Your eBay Team”