ROYAL MAIL workers will immediately be balloted for strikes if bosses impose changes to pensions, the Communication Workers Union warned yesterday.

In a private session at the union’s postal sector conference, the union affirmed a deadline of August for the privatised company to abandon its cuts threat.

If Royal Mail does not “positively respond” to the CWU’s own proposals for reform, the union will escalate the issue “up to, and not excluding a national industrial action ballot,” according to a motion unanimously passed at the conference.

But if the company imposes its changes via “executive order,” the union leadership is instructed to “activate an immediate ballot” for strikes.

CWU deputy general secretary Terry Pullinger told the hall: “If they call it on, we’ve got to have it.”

Speaking to the Star after the debate, he said the union would “do everything we can” to reach agreement with Royal Mail via “aggressive pragmatism.”

But he said if post bosses refused to back down the union would do “everything in our power” to “defeat” the plans.

The company is seeking to close its defined benefit pension scheme, which guarantees a set payment to retired posties.

Bosses instead want to introduce a defined contribution scheme, which the union says is “not a pension, it’s a savings scheme.”

Union reps have put forward an alternative “wages in retirement” scheme which it said “shares the risk” between the company and the employee.

The row mirrors an ongoing dispute in the Post Office, which remained in public hands when Royal Mail was sold off in 2013. Last autumn Post Office workers went on strike against the pension proposals.

Mr Pullinger said both companies had followed a “wider race to the bottom in the world of work,” where rival delivery companies such as Hermes have casualised their labour forces and denied workers basic rights.

“It’s shameful that most businesses are moving down this world of insecure employment,” he said.

Royal Mail is also threatening to cut perks such as pay supplements in areas with high living costs.

The union said the company is rowing back on “legally binding” agreements made at the time of privatisation.

In the debate, one delegate said: “Take us on and we will defeat you. Solidarity is strength.”

Another stormed: “The employer is hellbent on destroying this company, ruining the CWU and ruining our members’ lives.”