It may have gone down the path of privatisation, but this week the Royal Mail was still facing the spectre of trade union strikes – despite efforts to use the media to smooth things over.

There was plenty of appetite for Royal Mail shares this week when they were floated on the stock exchange. After just one day they were already trading at 489p – significantly more than the 330p they’d originally floated at. In a BBC interview, the organisation’s CEO Moya Greene, said: “It’s certainly the proudest moment of my career … We have climbed through a deep hole and we still have a long way to go, but it is a wonderful moment.”

On Tuesday, the company announced that full-time staff would receive 725 shares each, worth around £3,500: another ostensibly shrewd piece of PR that Greene may have hoped would help to improve relations with staff. However, an announcement on Wednesday showed that this hadn’t quite gone according to plan.

According to the Communication Workers Union (CWU), Royal Mail workers voted four-to-one in favour of going on strike on 4 November. Speaking about the company’s first strike in four years, CWU deputy general secretary Dave Ward said that postal staff “care about their jobs, terms and conditions far more than they care about shares”. Reacting to the vote, the Royal Mail unsurprisingly said that it was “very disappointed” by the announcement.

The strike added further bad news for customers who had already been given a hint that postal prices could rise. In an interview with Sky News, Greene was asked if an increase was imminent, she said; “Well, we didn’t raise stamp prices last year…”

While the company has managed to please the investors who landed shares, it seems there was a significant downside for Royal Mail staff and customers. Whether trust can be restored with those parties remains to be seen.