Royal Mail says strikes have cost them £200m 

The recent wave of postal strikes that have swept the UK have cost the Royal Mail £200m so far, according to the firm’s owner. 

The row with the CWU union over pay and conditions has led to 18 days of strike action since August. 

Royal Mail also said the number of voluntary redundancies it needed to hit job cut targets would be much lower than it first expected. 

They said it will be less than the 5,000-6,000 originally forecast, partly due to staff turnover. 

The dispute with the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has been going on since the summer, but the company said that up to 12,500 CWU employees had returned to work on strike days – about 115,000 workers had been involved in the strikes. 

Royal Mail owner International Distributions Severces said the business had lost £295m in the nine months to the end of December. 

Revenues in the nine-month period fell 12.8% from the year before. This was partly down to the strike action but also caused by a continued fall in the number of letters being sent and “weaker retail trends”.

The row over pay and conditions continues, and the CWU began its third ballot for strike action this week.