STUC - Motion 16: Royal Mail

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Please find following my speech to the STUC on Motion 16: Royal Mail

CWU has had to fight against the privatisation of Royal Mail on three separate occasions.

In 1994/5, we had to campaign against a Bill from Michael Heseltine. The Tory Government was weak at the time, Major had a reduced majority.

The Union took advantage of this by targeting activists in Tory marginals. As a result, the Bill fell as we had created so much disquiet amongst backbench MPs.
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The second campaign took pace between 2004 and 2007 with the management of Royal Mail organising a Lobby to have it privatised. They wish to have shares sold and others distributed to staff.


We organised a campaign inside and outside of Parliament. We used our connection to the Labour Party to win support inside the PLP and the Government.

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Eventually, after a long campaign, Government finally rejected management’s proposals in January 2007.

We had thought we may be able to relax, but in December 2008 Lord Mandelson announced the Government’s intention to sell up to half of Royal Mail to a private firm and to break the link between Royal Mail and the Post Office branches.

Once again we organised a campaign, including meetings in every part of the country.

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We lobbied inside and outside of Westminster. Once again, we worked with supporters inside the PLP and Government.

The Postal Services Bill was placed before the House of Commons in March 2009. We worked with supportive Lords to oppose the Bill at every stage. Here we must register our gratitude to Lord Tony Clarke who led the opposition inside the Lords.

The Government realised it could fall if it pressed the Bill beyond the First Reading in the House of Commons.
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A large number of Labour MPs were committed to vote against.

And so the Postal Services Bill fell in July 2009.

I must say that the STUC and the Scottish Labour movement has been a staunch and effective ally in all three campaigns.

Now, in the General Election campaign, the Tories have made it perfectly clear they want to privatise Royal Mail. Privatisation of Royal Mail is also a firm policy in the Liberal Democrats Manifesto.


The Labour Party Manifesto says

“The universal postal service delivery by Royal Mail connects and binds us together as a country. We are firmly committed to the 28 million homes and businesses across the country receiving mail 6 days a week with the promise that one price goes everywhere. The Royal Mail and its staff are taking welcome and needed steps to modernise work practices. For the future, continuing modernisation and investment will be needed by the Royal Mail in the public sector”.


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So the Labour Party Manifesto is committed to retaining Royal Mail in the public sector. Some members of the Government seem to believe that this means selling it off when conditions allow.

We think such a stance is not only a violation of Labour movement policies, it is also a violation of the meaning of the language.

But we believe we can hold the Labour Government to account and keep Royal Mail as a public service.

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Yet we may have a fresh campaign on the horizon so we want you to re-affirm your commitment to STUC policy to oppose Royal Mail privatisation.

The motion calls upon the Nationalist parties to also oppose privatisation. To be fair, both Plaid Cymru and the Scottish Nationalist Party have to date been consistently opposing privatisation of Royal Mail.

This is also true of both the Unionist and Nationalist Parties in the North of Ireland.

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Clearly, the importance of the universal service is well understood outside of those charmed, business circles in South East England.

But we take nothing and no one for granted in this.

The mistaken cross-party consensus on public sector cuts can lead many to support a break-up of Royal Mail.

The motion makes mention of the need for Government to take responsibility for the pensions deficit.
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This is the policy of the Labour Party Conference and its obligation to postal workers which was recognised by all Parties in the House of Lords debates on the Postal Services Bill.

We are continuing to lobby Government on this. Whatever the outcome of the Election, we will insist that a new Government honours its debt to postal workers.

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Our activists and officials have laid the basis for the modernisation of the industry with a ground breaking three year deal covering pay, hours and the introduction of new technology and services.

This came as a result of the preparedness of postal workers to take a considerable number of strike days – this was particularly true in Scotland. –


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The determination of the membership has laid the basis for the industry to be stabilised and expanded but any moves to offer the industry to private firms will jeopardise this progress.

We therefore call upon you to support our stance by agreeing Motion 16.

Posted by Billy Hayes | @ Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:00:50 +0100