Mail caterer defrosts pay

Members of the CWU communication workers’ union at Royal Mail caterer Quadrant have accepted a 2.75% pay increase backdated to October 2011, ending nine months of “extremely difficult” negotiations.

Royal Mail announced this spring that it planned to shut 140 workplace canteens in order to halve its £25 million annual subsidy. That created a “highly challenging” negotiating environment, not helped by the fact that Quadrant management had taken a pay freeze.

While future jobs could have been a priority in the pay talks, the union decided to continue negotiations “to get as much as we could into the basic pay”, CWU assistant secretary Terry Pullinger said. The settlement allows the union to move on and continue with the priority of trying to protect jobs, aided by a “use it or lose it” campaign aiming to boost take-up at canteens staffed by Quadrant members.