ROYAL MAIL bosses are deliberately undermining the firm’s commitment to universal services so they can impose gig economy-style working conditions, the Communication Workers Union charged today.

General secretary Dave Ward told MPs that the 500-year-old public service, which is obliged to deliver letters six days a week at a uniform price nationwide, is at risk in the hands of bosses who are “intimidating and threatening workers.”

The union is embroiled in a bitter six-month dispute with the privatised company over threats to cut jobs, attack working conditions and impose yet more take-home pay cuts.