Last weekend to send Christmas post before final deadlines next week - dates to remember

This is the last weekend for people to send their festive mail before the deadlines that aim to guarantee their delivery before December 25.

Royal Mail has asked its customers to ensure they send second class mail by Monday, December 12, and first class by Friday, December 16. The deadlines are earlier this year due to ongoing strike action by the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which has further walkouts planned for December 11, 14, 15, 23, and 24.

The final delivery dates are:

Monday, December 12

• 2nd Class

• 2nd Class Signed For

• Royal Mail 48®

Friday, December 16

• 1st Class

• 1st Class Signed For

• Royal Mail 24®

• Royal Mail Tracked 48®

Monday, December 19

• Royal Mail Tracked 24®

Wednesday, December 21

• Special Delivery Guaranteed®

In an open letter to customers, Royal Mail CEO Simon Thompson said: "We’ll do everything we can to respond. And we're doing everything we can to settle this dispute."

Mr Thompson said the company was losing £1 million a day before the strikes, and called on the CWU to 'stop resisting changes' in the increasingly bitter dispute over jobs, pay and conditions

He also explained how 60 per cent fewer letters are being posted, a number which keeps falling, but parcel deliveries are increasing.

"We are bringing in new recruits on different contracts, but their terms, conditions and pensions will still be the best in the industry," he continued. "This is not the gig economy. We have a generous voluntary redundancy scheme and are NOT making compulsory redundancies."

Mr Thompson said how the company is introducing 'family-friendly' options to help with their need for more afternoon working.

He signed off: "We’ll do everything we can to deliver Christmas."

On Friday thousands of Royal Mail workers gathered outside Parliament to mark another strike.

Many among the animated crowd wore pink hi-vis vests, waved flags and held placards that read "strike to win" and "save our Royal Mail". The CWU was expecting more than 15,000 members to attend the rally, describing it as the biggest postal workers' demonstration in living memory.

CWU boss Dave Ward said staff were "fighting for their jobs, their livelihood, and the service that they provide to the public".

"What we've got in this situation is not that we're fearful of modernisation, but what the company are asking postal workers to agree is that we sack thousands of them whilst at the same time bringing in self-employed drivers, new recruits on less than 20 per cent pay terms and conditions and whilst retaining agency workers," he said.

He said the company's demands for workers to start up to three hours later "will destroy the future of Royal Mail".