Just thought I'd let everyone know that domestic and international UK mail might be a little slow at the moment, owing to an ongoing labour dispute between CWU (The Communications Union) and Royal Mail!

How To Stay Updated:

You can find the Royal Mail official strike notice page here, worth checking periodically for any updates.

Here is the CWU press release regarding the vote to strike.

The Guardian has also written an article about the strike here, with some additional details.

If you have Twitter, you may be able to get more immediate/continuous updates regarding the strike by following the CWU official Twitter account, which you can find here.

EDIT: Monetmonkey mentioned in the comments below:

It was Work to Rule the week before last from 11th - 16th July and the Strikes were from Wednesday 20th - Friday 22nd last week. So if you6r just reading and hearing of this, don't worry, it already happened.

So while some strike actions have already occurred, I'm making this post now as a heads up because while negotiations remain underway, there is potential for further strike action! :) Thank you for mentioning this! <3

Context For The Strike(s):

I hope this information can help answer why the strike vote has gone through! :)

I fully understand the concerns of the workers, and I hope the union members can get Royal Mail to come to a fairer agreement. Our posties deserve the best! <3

The CWU posted a more recent update here, outlining some of their concerns:

• Wages have not increased to meet the current 11.7% inflation rate
• Some staff are already striking without pay, with no real response from Royal Mail as of yet
• Although represented by a separate union, engineers were offered a 2% pay increase, which was declined as it is not adequate in relation to the increased cost of living
• Cleaning staff were offered no pay raise at all, despite being critical to the safe maintenance of all Royal Mail post offices etc. throughout a pandemic

So, the strike is to address all the declined requests for reasonable pay increase, to encourage a more reasonable wage increase offer from Royal Mail, and is also partially a solidarity strike to support other workers for the Royal Mail who have not received any offers for pay raise at all.

Additional Context:

On top of their concerns regarding wages etc., there have been some longer running issues which are likely to have compounded any strife.

For example, there is the British Post Office Scandal (also still ongoing) which deserves more attention:

The British Post Office scandal is a miscarriage of justice involving the wrongful civil and criminal prosecutions of an unknown or unpublished number of sub-postmasters (SPMs) for theft, false accounting and/or fraud.

The cases constitute the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British legal history, spanning a period of over twenty years and it remains unresolved.

So, you can see what postal workers over here have been dealing with the past few years, and I hope the union members come out on top of any negotiations! <3

Potential Impact on Postal Service:

While strikes are underway or being planned and negotiations have not yet occurred, we can almost certainly expect slightly slower service than usual.

Mail Abroad!

International service is likely to experience longer delays in delivery to other countries; Not currently sure if larger letters/packages will be subject to similar delays, as this may vary.

For example, in my experience Pochta Russia tends to send couriers for parcel delivery separate from the Royal Mail, but Finnish Posti tends to go through Royal Mail for the final stretch of parcel deliveries, so one nation's parcels may be delayed while the other might not be.

Letters and post cards coming in and going out from the UK are all typically handled by Royal Mail unless specifically sent otherwise, so delays are likely for both incoming and outgoing international mail, for the most part.

Mail At Home!

Domestic UK mail services are also estimated to experience delays or disruptions; ParcelForce may also be impacted to some degree, although this isn't 100% clear as of right now.

However, any such domestic service delays are more likely to be announced ahead of time in a little more detail by either Royal Mail or the CWU via the links provided above, so check frequently if you might be affected by any strike action(s)!

In General!

There is no set information on any specific estimated delays available at the moment, but updates might pop up at some point on the Royal Mail strike news page, linked at the top of this post. :)

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I hope these resources can be helpful for anyone else in the UK, or for anyone who may be expecting to receive or send any mail through the UK! :)

It's an ongoing situation, so some of this information will likely go out of date at some point, but if need be I'm happy to provide any updates which might be relevant to those of us who frequently send snail mail. :)

Cheers! <3