Royal Mail is ripe for public ownership

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ip-workers" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The future of Royal Mail is up for grabs again. Before the election, the Tories and Lib Dems had different policies relating to the issue. The coalition compromise being touted now is the Tory policy of off-loading the whole company, almost complete privatisation, with an element of Lib Dem policy – some of the company held in trust for the employees.

This might seem to some like a good idea for the workers – they would get a share of the profits and, supposedly, they would get more say in the way the company is run.

The ownership structure of John Lewis is presented as a good example, but it doesn't fit. First, John Lewis is not a mixed model, it is owned by its employees. There is a huge difference. What kind of control would a group representing thousands of workers owning at best 25% of the company have? Privatisation, even with the fig leaf of a little bit of employee ownership, will leech money out of Royal Mail. Anyone who watches Dragon's Den knows that investors expect a return on their investment – they want more out than they put in.

And this is the second difference with John Lewis – Royal Mail is a public service, not a chain of shops. Profit should never have come into their business. Privatisation will make it a whole lot worse.

What the proposal for an employee trust is really about is an attempt to co-opt the workforce and destroy the traditional militancy of the postal workers. The hope is that, if the workers have a stake in the company's profits, they are less likely to strike and more likely to sign up for more and more "modernisation" and "efficiency" changes that sacrifice service to maximise profits.

How about going a different way – not back to nationalisation or further into privatisation? How about real public ownership and workers' control?

Imagine if the Royal Mail became the People's Post, owned by each and every person in the UK, secure beyond the grabbing hands of politicians and their friends in business. Imagine a company controlled by the people most in touch with their customers – the postman or woman, the staff in the post office and sorting depot.

A service managed democratically by the people who know the problems and how to fix them – on behalf of people they work for, the public. A service free to try new things, like the People's Bank idea – supported by the CWU, the main union in Royal Mail – that would bring in extra revenue. Democratic workers' control would be easier to establish in Royal Mail than in many other companies. Its highly unionised and geographically spread structure could easily become the basis of a syndicalist structure. This would mean replacing the current hierarchical management structure with a federated direct democratic system.

Individual parts of the organisation could have more autonomy, electing people to particular roles, like that of head of department, on a regular basis and deciding local policies, like post office opening hours or postal delivery times, to suit local needs. This kind of localised system would allow the general public to have a much greater input into decision-making; community forums could be established to encourage dialogue between the workers and community.

The elected heads would be delegated to regional and national forums to set broader strategy. As a delegate, they would be bound by the decisions of their local electorate and could be removed immediately if they deviated from those decisions. Pay structures could be decided democratically – and it might turn out that the overall pay bill would be less. Shedding layer after layer of hierarchical management would cut costs immediately.

Pensions is a major issue right now, but that could change under a syndicalist structure. Again, removing highly paid hierarchies would reduce the company's future pension liability. And, while public subsidies or service charges might not be popular now, change the structure of the company and make it more connected to the public – and who knows? A pound or two from everyone in the country each year could sort things out in a few years.

This is something the government is unlikely to want, but it's something for which the workers could fight. They will need to be both militant and creative, but with a government that wants rid of the company and with the vultures of private capital circling, it's up to the workers to fight to save this essential public service. The only way they can do that is by taking over.

[Broxi51]

Sounds good......So what's the catch?

[subbie]

Surely the Royal Mail Group is already in FULL public ownership, and has been for ages. The Government hold all the shares on behalf of the Nation, and the Swiss Bankers, oops sorry the Shareholder Executive keep an eye on the Group on behalf of the Gov (along with all the other UK PLC owned companies). Problem is I cant remember when the Nation last got a dividend from the Group, instead the Nation seems to be paying in to the Group. So just what sort of game is the Shareholder Exec playing? What we have is management failure, what we have is a broken business model. So I do not understand where the Guardian is coming from.

I can see the JL model working if the "partnership" is made up of the People, (represented by their elected Gov), the Staff (all levels), and a private investor, providing the private investor accepted that they were just one part of the "partnership" and played their part as a true "partner" and worked for the collective good of the company rather than short term profit gains for their parent shareholders. I would advocate the Gov holding the casting vote, with all parties signing up to a legally binding charter that they will conduct themselves in accordance with the company ethics, or risk being expelled from the Partnership.

The important thing to achieve is the Governance and Democratic structure of how the company runs. A partnership will not last if all parties do not believe that they have equality of democratic representation.

I wonder how many private investors would be willing to invest in John Lewis (if the Partnership needed investment) on the understanding that the new investor played by the company rules? Quite a few I would suggest.

Subbie

[chunk]

SUBBIE SAYS:

"Surely the Royal Mail Group is already in FULL public ownership, and has been for ages. The Government hold all the shares on behalf of the Nation,"

MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY.

[smokerjim]

SUBBIE SAYS:

"Surely the Royal Mail Group is already in FULL public ownership, and has been for ages. The Government hold all the shares on behalf of the Nation,"

MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY.

And if the Govt state before an election that they plan to sell us off after they get elected ( even if they just scraped in ), they figure we ( the elctorate ) have given them the mandate to do so ( even if the reality is the biggest political party opposed to selling off RM only gained it's first MP at the election, and the electorate reckoned "RM was going to get sold by all the others, so might as well concentrate on the differences in the budget and fiscal policy, transport, jobs, health, Afghanistan, etc, etc"