Royal Mail boss slammed for receiving huge £140k bonus - as union threatens six more months of strike action

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Royal Mail boss Simon Thompson was grilled by MPs over an annual salary of £540,000 and £140,000 bonus cheque.

The CEO of Royal Mail has been slammed after his half-a-million-pound salary and £140,000 bonus was revealed. It comes as postal workers threaten to take further strike action for six more months in a dispute over pay and working conditions.

Simon Thompson was grilled by MPs - spearheaded by Labour MP Darren Jones - over his pay during a hearing with the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy committee. His £540,000 salary is more than 23 times higher than that of the average Royal Mail worker (£25,700).

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During the event it was also revealed Chief Executive of Royal Mail, Nick Read, has a yearly salary of £415,000. In the 2021/2022 financial year, Mr Read also received a bonus of £400,000.

Around the time Royal Mail were reporting daily losses of £1 million and with thousands more redundancies planned to cut costs, Mr Thompson was asked by MPs to justify the bonus. Labour MP Ian Lavery asked the CEO: “Are you really worth that amount of money, Mr Thompson?”

Mr Thompson argued that “last year is different to this year” before adding, “this year we are losing £1 million a day, the situation is a very serious situation”. He also received scrutiny for his plans to slash sick pay for Royal Mail workers.

Credit: Sky NewsCredit: Sky News
Credit: Sky News | Sky News

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) responded to the news and confirmed the long-running dispute is not close to being resolved and is clearly “not an issue of affordability”.  Members have threatened further industrial action could take place across the next six months.

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