WRITTEN ON November 12th, 2009 BY chris AND STORED IN General

Tags: postal strikes, royal mail

So the postal strikes have been called off, for the time being at least.

The Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union finally reached some sort of agreement last week, promising that there would be no further disruption for the remainder of this year. Businesses up and down the land can therefore plan for Christmas knowing their seasonal marketing campaigns will not be derailed by another walkout.

We’re extremely pleased that common sense has prevailed in what was becoming a largely futile exercise. The strikers had little or no support from the public at large, and any hope they had of demonstrating the importance of their place in the overall scheme of things was largely scotched by the RM’s rapid introduction of 30,000 temporary staff. Even I didn’t really notice the difference on a couple of the strike days.

That said, there’s no doubt about the negative impact that this summer and autumn of strikes has caused. Aside from the backlog of post, the uncertainty created has without doubt been damaging and it’s difficult to see how the RM can recover. Both direct mail customers and unaddressed mail customers are actively seeking permanent alternatives.

The jury is out as to where the RM goes from here. One argument says that their luck has well and truly run out, that the strikes of 2009 represent a watershed moment in their history. Will we look back on the current truce period as the calm before the storm that finally condemns the entire institution? Are the unions just holding their fire?

Then there’s the possibility that the warring sides could in fact surprise us all by concocting a recovery plan that both sign up to, laying the foundation for a period of relative normality, even though it would inevitably only be a temporary solution.

Time will tell as to where the Royal Mail goes from here. The one thing for certain is that they face an uphill battle, during which direct marketing clients will no doubt continue to use the free consultancy services where companies like ours can demonstrate the very versatile options available to them.

There should always be a place in the marketing mix for RM - whether they continue to make that difficult for themselves is down to them.