TO ALL BRANCHES WITH POSTAL MEMBERS

Dear Colleague

ROYAL MAIL EXECUTIVE PAY

The Union has today written to Vince Cable the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills calling for the Government to undertake an immediate enquiry into the pay and reward packages of the Royal Mail Group senior executives.

This follows the publication yesterday of the company's Annual Report, which disclosed that the overall earnings of senior executives has again rocketed during a period where the company imposed a pay freeze on the workforce.

The report revealed the following information:-

Adam Crozier , former Chief Executive, took home a total of £2.4m in 2009/10. This was made up of the following:

Ian Duncan , Group Finance Director, took home a total of £1.4m, made up of: £325k in salary

Ian Duncan's salary is also due to rise by £25k in July this year, an increase of 7.7%.

Mark Higson , Managing Director of Letters, took home a total of £1.7m, made up of: £428k in salary

On top of this they are members of the Royal Mail Senior Executive Pension Plan. A final salary pension scheme now closed to new members.

The three-year LTIP was in place between 2007/08 and 2009/10. It is a mechanism by which two forms of annual bonus are paid into a pot each year for three years. The bonuses paid into the pot are linked to performance. This year the equivalent of 37.5% of base salaries went into the pot; each year directors could also choose to put a proportion of their annual bonus into the pot. Before payout the total pot was further increased, on the basis of company performance, by a multiplier of 1.

In light of this information we will be pressing the Government to put into practice what they themselves have been preaching and take urgent action to curb these unjustified senior executive remuneration packages.

For any company – let alone a public sector company facing huge challenges – the pay and benefits disparity between senior executives and the workforce must be unacceptable to any fair minded person.

We note that in defending these packages the company Chairman Donald Brydon states “that Royal Mail needs to be able to attract from the commercial market the best management talent” . This just illustrates that there is something fundamentally wrong with the approach across British industry to market rate pay. On one hand market rate pay is seen as something to drive down the terms and conditions of workers - whilst on the other hand market rate pay is used to drive up the pay and conditions of senior executives.

We want all CWU Branches and members to know that the Union will pursue this matter vigorously. We have attached a copy of yesterday's CWU press release.

Further information will be sent out in due course. Any enquiries on the content of this LTB should be directed to the DGS (P) department.

Yours sincerely

Dave Ward

Deputy General Secretary (P)

3 rd June 2010

For immediate release

CWU Outraged at Crozier Bonus

The CWU today (Thursday) reacts with outrage at the news that Adam Crozier received £2.5million in his final year as Chief Executive of Royal Mail.

Dave Ward , CWU deputy general secretary, said: “Postal workers will be outraged by news of Crozier's salary and bonus.

“Adam Crozier's bonus came after a year in which he oversaw a national postal strike, lost the confidence of his workforce and then left before the job of modernisation and business transformation was complete.

“Postal workers will be equally horrified at the pay given to other senior executives.

“Adam Crozier's pension will be the envy of postal workers whose own, much smaller, pension pots are at risk.”

Royal Mail's annual report is available on their website: www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content1?catId=23300505&mediaId=23300508#44400259