ROYAL MAIL must be renationalised to protect the 500-year-old service from incompetent bosses who are evading their legal obligations to deliver letters nationwide six days a week, retail workers said today.

The strike-hit firm’s universal service obligation (USO) will “never come back if we lose it,” Yorkshire delegate Stephen Lord told the final day of retail union Usdaw’s annual conference in Blackpool.

Many delegates expressed their solidarity with “valiant” Communication Workers Union (CWU) members, who first downed tools at Royal Mail in August last year over attempts to impose gig economy-style working conditions and further take-home pay cuts.

An end to the dispute could be in sight after the CWU urged its members over the weekend to accept the latest deal from bosses, which includes a 10 per cent wage boost over three years and a pledge to cancel the “Uberisation” of the national institution.

Addressing Blackpool’s Empress Ballroom, Usdaw member Ryan Aldred said: “My grandfather John Aldred joined Royal Mail when he was 15 and gave almost 50 years of his life to the postal service.

“He would be furious to see what’s become of the public service he struck on numerous occasions to defend.”

The Plymouth delegate accused bosses of hoping to cut the USO to five days a week as they “worship at the altar of the bottom line and shareholders.”

He slammed real-terms pay cuts across public services, joking that if wages had risen as much as prices, “we could have held next year’s conference in the Bahamas.

“Full solidarity to the CWU and, as my nan would be proud to hear me say, stand by your post.”

Cumbria member Gillian Troughton warned that “these attacks have been a long time coming,” following the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government’s decision to privatise Royal Mail in 2013 while leaving the Post Office in the state sector.

“If we lose the USO, they’ll be parts of the UK which will not be able to get post. We must preserve it and bring the company back into public ownership.”

Backing the calls, Usdaw deputy general secretary Dave McCrossen said: “Letters and cards still have a significance, particularly to the elderly or those living on their own.

“And postal workers also deliver important parcels, medical tests and details of hospital appointments. 

“Royal Mail must be taken back into public control so it can be operated in the best interests of customers and workers.”