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Post boss's £3m pay rise attacked
POST office campaigners have hit out at the Royal Mail after its boss received more than £3m in the last financial year.
Chief executive Adam Crozier received the money in pay, pensions and incentives – despite the company closing 2,500 post offices nationwide to cut huge losses.
Four branches in Hartlepool, one in east Durham and two in Billingham, are to close at the end of next month, despite frustrated residents fighting to keep them open.
Mr Crozier's basic salary remained unchanged from the year before at 633,000, but this was increased to 843,000 because of an annual performance bonus and other benefits.
He also received 1.99m for a long-term incentive plan covering three years and a cash supplement in lieu of pension of 208,000.
Campaigners, who fought to keep open Raby Estate Post Office, in Chatham Road, Elwick Road Post Office, in Elwick Road, and Hart Post Office, in Hart village, are furious with the huge pay packet.
Hutton Henry Post Office, in Front Street, Hutton Henry and two offices in Billingham, the Cowpen Estate, in Cowpen Lane, and Wolviston Court, in Clifton Avenue, are also closing.
Bill Sunley, 84, tried to save Elwick Road Post Office and raised 1,000 of the 5,000 signatures on the Mail's Save our Post Offices petition.
"My opinion is that people at the top are taking the money and we at the bottom are suffering for it," said the retired boilermaker.
"I can't understand it at all. We pay the money in and they take it out, how is that fair?
"Everyone knows the post offices are losing money so why are they giving out bonuses when it is being managed so badly?"
Mr Sunley added that the up coming closures will hit the Elwick Road area hard.
He said: "Nobody knows what they are going to do, especially the older residents. We are all very deflated."
A total of 3.1m was paid in salaries and bonuses to 16 executives, not including Mr Crozier, in the 2007/08 financial year.
Royal Mail chairman Allan Leighton, whose pay and bonus remained at 200,000, said of Mr Crozier's salary: "The payment covers three years during which the group, led by Adam and the team, has consistently exceeded expectations and met all the targets set by the shareholder.
"This is against a backdrop of a declining overall mails market, accelerating competition and a pension fund that consumes around 800 million a year in cash."
But Dave Ward, deputy general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, said: "The actions, wages and misjudgements of Royal Mail management demands closer scrutiny.
"Rewarding the misjudgements of executives like this is a public scandal that they should not be allowed to get away with."
The group announced earlier this month that its operating profit fell by almost a third, to 162m, while the universal service was in the red for the first time to the tune of 100m.
The Government announced 2,500 post offices will close by the end of the year, leaving around 11,500 branches.
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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