A message from the boss (Adam Crozier) for postmen.

This year. Over 20% of all letters will be handled by our competition. It should be clear to everyone already that competition is real and competition is here. And yet at the same time, everybody in the business wants us to be successful. We want to go out and win new revenue and retain the revenue that we have. So why are we losing business? We're losing business very simply because our costs and therefore our prices are too high. So if we want to compete to win and if we want to bring in new revenue and keep the revenue we've got, we've got to bring our cost down. In many ways, that's why it's so disappointing that we are where we are today, facing a potential strike. The simple fact is that the CWU have put in a pay claim for over 27% and a reduction in the working week. The cost of that for our business would be about 1 billion pounds per annum. This is in complete contrast to what we have on Parcel Force where the union have recommended acceptance of a deal that would cost them just 2.5% on pay. So we have 2.5% being a good thing for parcels but seemingly not for letters. We are all now facing a very stark choice. It's either a win-win situation for everyone or a lose-lose situation for everyone. For everyone to win, we have to get on with accepting the pay bill on the table. That means we can genuinely start to invest in and modernize the business. It means that for those people who have to leave, they leave on good VR terms. We can do everything we plan to do to protect the pension scheme as much as we can for all of your futures. And it means that we can genuinely get on with looking to compete to win and keeping revenue and winning revenue for the business. If you vote for a strike, we will definitely have a lose-lose scenario. And remember, if you vote for a strike, you'll get a strike. And our belief is it will be a long strike simply because the company really cannot afford to pay any more money at this time. Customers are already telling us that if there's a strike, they'll leave and this time they won't come back. That revenue will be lost forever. And on a personal level, you'll lose money. Not just the pay from taking any strike action that you do, but also the chance to earn productivity payments because we'll simply run out of time to change. And also, you'll lose the chance to earn from colleague shares, a dividend of around £800. That's a huge amount of money for people to lose and to destroy the business at the same time. Just as importantly for all of you, it will lead to more job losses. It'll lead to our plans to protect pensions as much as we can being undermined, and it will undoubtedly lead to the company only being able to afford lower VR terms. As always, the choice is yours. But remember, if you vote for a strike, you're not strengthening the union's negotiating hand. You're voting for a strike. And a strike is exactly what you will get. And a strike will fundamentally change this business forever. Everyone in the Royal Mail is hugely ambitious for the company to succeed and we have some terrific plans in place to really grow our revenue by bringing in new products and new services that we know our customers really want and need. There's a fantastic amount of goodwill from our customers to see us succeed in this. And if we can do that, we can bring in much needed cash to help modernize the business. And the exciting thing is that we have for the first time the money from our shareholder to invest in the company to genuinely give us for the first time a chance to really modernize and change the way we work. That's a great opportunity for everyone to ensure that we have a chance to compete on a fair and level playing field in the future. Everyone's aware that together we've been through a huge amount of change over the last four years. And clearly at times that's been very difficult, but we've all come through it together. And we're in a better position now than we would have been if we hadn't done that. But like all companies, we can't stand still. We have a whole new set of challenges in front of us. And we're very confident that with your help, the company can not just rise to those challenges, but meet them and genuinely succeed in the future. That's why this vote is so important. Please talk to the people you trust, your friends, your family, people who work for other companies, all those other companies who've already been through much of the change that we need to go through over the next three or four years. We really want everyone to vote for a win-win solution and a chance for the Royal Mail to have a bright future where it can genuinely compete in an open marketplace and be successful and give our customers what they want, which is a first-class service.