Billys' Speech National Briefing on Royal Mail privatisation

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Later on today we will be meeting with Ed Davy, minister responsible for Royal Mail. We are expecting him to appraise us of Richard Hooper’s latest report, and its endorsement of the coalition government’s proposals to privatise Royal Mail.

In a previous meeting with Vince Cable, we were told of the coalition’s intention to take the first and second reading of the bill in parliament in October. They hope to have legislation endorsed in parliament by next summer.

So today’s briefing is an opportunity for us to clarify how we are going to fight and defeat the government’s proposal.

We defeated Heseltine’s bill, we defeated Leighton’s lobbying campaign, and we defeated Mandelson’s bill.

There are no guarantees in any fight. But if you don’t fight, you can guarantee you’ll lose. We intend to fight and win.

The tactics that we use must be appropriate to the changed political situation.

To start with the government – the coalition is in a strong position. They have a parliamentary majority of 65, and nearly 60% of the electorate voted for the two governing parties.

But there are serious tensions which can be exploited. A wing of both liberals and yories object to their coalition partners – so there is a chance of internal rebellions.

Some may find this surprising, but it is likely that there will be more rebellions within the tories, than the liberal democrats. Remember, it was the tory rebellion that did for Heseltine’s bill.

The policy of privatisation remains deeply unpopular with the electorate.

Every opinion poll for over 20 years shows a big majority in opposition to Royal Mail privatisation.

Our most recent poll shows a majority opposed amongst lib dem and tory supporters.

51% of Tory voters opposed any partial or complete sale.
63% of Lib Dem voters opposed any partial or complete sale.

So our tactic is to utilise the majority opinion to heighten the existing frictions inside and between the coalition partners.

That is the significance of our decision to concentrate our campaign on the 71 marginal seats of the coalition government.

These are seats where the government’s MPs have a 10% or less majority. If only five in every hundred of their supporters switch votes then they lose their seat.

We have to create a sufficient racket in these constituencies so that MPs will feel that they cannot support the Government’s proposal.

The document that we circulated – “the 65 marginal seats” – actually lists 71 seats. The 65 is the Government’s majority.

The vast majority of our target seats are tories – 61 in fact.

As we have fewer historic connections with the tories, we have had to go to outside experts for advice and contacts. So we have a contract with the consultancy firm, PSA. This firm has good personal contacts with the tories and are offering us avenues of attack which we would not otherwise have had.

The Keep the Post Public Campaign is a national campaign – but the work of the local branches around these marginals is absolutely decisive if we are to win this fight.

Branches need to establish local Keep the Post Public committees which will draw in all the organisations and individuals who are prepared to actively support the campaign.

This does mean working with parties whose politics we have opposed – such as the Nationalist Parties or the Greens.

But we do require their support inside and outside the parliament if we are to achieve our aims. The best local coalitions will be the broadest based.

It is encouraging that branches are already organising a good deal of effective work, and today is an opportunity for branches to expand on this.

The National Union is, of course, promoting many initiatives along side the work of the branches.

We have events at the tory and lib dems conferences. And this Saturday, I am speaking at an event at the Greens Party Conference.

At the Labour Party conference, we are working out some effective tactics alongside other unions. But we have had one major success already.

We have got all five labour leadership candidates to sign up to supporting a three line party whip against the tory legislation.

As you can imagine – there are still some sore heads in leading labour circles about the defeat of Mandelson’s bill.

So we faced the possibility that we would not get the complete support of the parliamentary party against the bill.

But we will use the commitments already given to ensure that the PLP leads the fight in parliament against the bill.

Now the bill itself may well not lead to an immediate sale – the economy is still fragile. And the coalition is also unclear whether to sell to a partner – or go for a general share floatation.

That is a weakness on their part. Much of the argument hooper laid out has been by-passed by events. Hence the need for a further fig leaf from him.

But we can be certain that the bill will also address the issue of the pensions and the issue of regulation.

Now Dave and Natalie will cover these issues in greater detail – but I want to make some general points.

On pensions – the agreement between the trustees and the employer for a 38 year repayment period on the deficit is a major breakthrough.

It guarantees a steady contribution stream from the employer – and it removes the deficit as an argument for privatisation.

Of course the Government, Hooper, and others, will insist that the deficit is one of the sources of privatisation.

But this is untrue, and we must defend the extended repayment period. After all – we campaigned for this. So our success, must not be jeopardised by the Government’s desire to sell off the industry.

The legislation will cover pensions – but not the deficit. We need to make this very clear to the politicians.

All the legislation is likely to do on pensions is break up the scheme in line with the break up of Royal Mail that flows from privatisation.

The separation of POL involves the separation of the pension scheme. Other parts of the business will be spun off too – so the legislation will enable the pension scheme to be fragmented.

We went through this argument with Mandelson’s Postal Services Bill. So we are well equipped to respond.

The work that Tony Clarke and Thompson’s Solicitors did for us on that legislation will serve us in preparing for the coalition Government’s bill.

But as I stressed earlier – the deficit will not need to be covered in legislation – because the agreement reached dealt with it.

The Pensions Regulator is proving sticky – but we will have a row with the regulator if they attempt to reject the agreement reached between the trustee and the employer.

What we demand of the Government on the deficit is that they support the agreement already reached – and stop mouthing off in an irresponsible and misleading manner.

On regulation – we are beginning to see a retreat by Postcomm from some of its more absurd mistakes.

On access pricing – there is going to be some concessions made – but we are taking nothing for granted and continuing our campaigning work on this.

On a range of issues we are expecting concessions from Postcomm – these include access pricing; allowing Royal Mail to better compete on parcels and packets; a supportive price control; etc.

If Postcomm continues with a more constructive approach, then we may even support the continuation of a separate postal regulator, rather than wrap the whole thing up in OFCOM.

But we will keep up the pressure and this will be part of the fight around the bill.

Inside parliament itself – we will support a fight line by line in the legislation, attempting to secure as many fall back amendments as possible.

This is not contradictory to campaigning against the bill as a whole.

We did this against Mandelson’s Bill – getting dozens of amendments placed and debated in the Lords. In the Commons such tactics are even more necessary.

Another tactic we will be using is to promote the debate in the BIS Select Committee. We have got an agreement with Labour MPs to convene a select committee inquiry on Royal Mail. Such a report can have a very good impact in undermining the legitimacy of the Government’s position.

In the past couple of years we have registered important successes – which have transformed the position for the industry.

In defeating Mandelson’s Privatisation Bill – we secured a position whereby Royal Mail could demonstrate its ability to ride the recession better than its privatised rivals.

In winning the modernisation agreement – we secured a process of change in the industry removing one of the major planks underneath the privatisation agenda.

In winning the extended repayment period for the pensions deficit, we removed the suggestion that the industry was bankrupt and had to be sold.

So the argument for privatisation is now very weak.

Vince Cable has said he wants Royal Mail privatised because he is afraid it can’t compete. This is despite the fact that Royal Mail still delivers 99% of previously reserved mail.

Another argument is that Royal Mail cannot fund future investment. Again, in actual fact the current modernisation is fully funded – and the Government loan is being repaid. So it is future investment that has now been referred too.

That will be dealt with by Royal Mail being allowed to retain its profits – or if necessary by borrowing whether from the Government or from the money markets.

But the cupboard is pretty bare in the coalition Government’s proposal. So we are going to further demonstrate this by publishing a model of an innovative Post Office in the public sector.

We are working up some material already – and once we have Hooper’s new report, we will finalise this.

We will demonstrate how it makes economic and political sense to keep Royal Mail and a public service. We will aim to have a pamphlet available for your campaign work in the very near future.

Thanks for listening.

[subbie]

Nice of Billy to mention the hiving off of POL from the Group

Subbie

[wolfie citizen smith]

Well I wondered how I was going to get the whole of christmas off, now I believe striking over this period would be ideal and then lets see vince cable see how the german and dutch post deals with that.......Fecking bald headed old bastard

[minx]

Here we go again when are we striking ,because the phone lines in customer services are going to go into meltdown and customers will be even more abusive, power to the posties and customer services

[POSTMAN]

Here we go again when are we striking ,because the phone lines in customer services are going to go into meltdown and customers will be even more abusive, power to the posties and customer services

Well you'll have to have a new script instead of "Well madam/Sir i can assure you the postie did knock"

[dvbuk55]

Well I wondered how I was going to get the whole of christmas off, now I believe striking over this period would be ideal and then lets see vince cable see how the german and dutch post deals with that.......Fecking bald headed old bastard

Strike You must be joking, you would need to have a ballot first and a sucessful one at that - I mean how many are going to strike for two days to have the rug pulled because there has been an "interim agreement" which promises much and delivers privatisation anyway.

TBH the scope of 2010 and beyond doesn't really leave much room to manouevre anyway does it? 3 years with no reward to speak of and a sweetheart deal on all and any working practices.

[woofwoof]

Well I wondered how I was going to get the whole of christmas off, now I believe striking over this period would be ideal and then lets see vince cable see how the german and dutch post deals with that.......Fecking bald headed old bastard

no f***ing chance

[wolfie citizen smith]

the 2010 and beyond agenda will be on the back burner as Management, customer services, human resources, mail centres, network, distribution and delivery offices will all be looked at and do you honestly think that all within the royal mail payrole will not stand up and be counted on this matter?

[labbloke]

Well I wondered how I was going to get the whole of christmas off, now I believe striking over this period would be ideal and then lets see vince cable see how the german and dutch post deals with that.......Fecking bald headed old bastard

Strike You must be joking, you would need to have a ballot first and a sucessful one at that - I mean how many are going to strike for two days to have the rug pulled because there has been an "interim agreement" which promises much and delivers privatisation anyway.

TBH the scope of 2010 and beyond doesn't really leave much room to manouevre anyway does it? 3 years with no reward to speak of and a sweetheart deal on all and any working practices.

A bit surprised at you dvbuk55, this isnt about D2D or wsm or later and longer delivery hours, this is about whether most of us will have a job at all in the future.

Which private company or private equity firm isnt going to 'streamline' the service by going down the dutch housewife model

Casual labour and agency workers on minimum wages will be the norm, remember the shareholder is king and must be fed his yearly dividend, and when 70% of your costs are wages, this will be the avenue of attack.

I for one will vote NO in the national ballot and be prepared to be out for more than 'two' days

[fishtank]

What national ballot?...what strikes?....who's been handing out the happy pills and missed me?
Does this sound like a union ready to strike over privatisation?

The resolution passed by conference on the part-privatisation of Royal Mail, however, stops short of calling for a repeat of last year's strikes. It specifically states: "Conference recognises that different tactics will be employed in comparison to the previous anti-privatisation campaigns."
The steps the National Executive Council is directed to take include launching a "broad-based" public campaign against the proposals while seeking "to establish early dialogue with the coalition government".
A second resolution which instructed the NEC to "use all means possible to protect jobs and services in a publicly owned Royal Mail Group including industrial action" was withdrawn.

Scary stuff it aint.

[wolfie citizen smith]

wait and see fishtank, strikes are looming and I for one will be behind my Branch Secretary.
shame on you vince cable

[cantbelieveit's...]

wait and see fishtank, strikes are looming and I for one will be behind my Branch Secretary.
shame on you vince cable

The CWU would get a YES ballot to strike on this as it's an easy sell, 1) STRIKE and we have a chance of keeping our jobs , friends and colleagues WITH THE BETTER HARD FOUGHT FOR T&C's which we have 2) DON'T STRIKE and more than half of the work force will be gone and those who are left will yes have a job, but on worse T&C's, with a job that is unrecogniseable and far worse than what people moan about now .

Support the campaign and keep the post public

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BELIAL]

Well I wondered how I was going to get the whole of christmas off, now I believe striking over this period would be ideal and then lets see vince cable see how the german and dutch post deals with that.......Fecking bald headed old bastard

Strike You must be joking, you would need to have a ballot first and a sucessful one at that - I mean how many are going to strike for two days to have the rug pulled because there has been an "interim agreement" which promises much and delivers privatisation anyway.

TBH the scope of 2010 and beyond doesn't really leave much room to manouevre anyway does it? 3 years with no reward to speak of and a sweetheart deal on all and any working practices.

Yep you go on strike ,we'll tell you what days to go in ,but we won't tell you what we are talking about,cos you are dross and we hold all the balls,so do as we say you minions :mfo

[Cut Off King]

Everyone ,Yes everyone in my office would NOT vote to strike....We lost many days both locally & nationaly last time around, we WON'T be fooled twice. I ain,t going out again so that Billy can get the "deal of the century" only to find out we've been sold a pup like the last agreement eg. unpaid D2D,s & Late Saturdays etc.

[BELIAL]

Everyone ,Yes everyone in my office would NOT vote to strike....We lost many days both locally & nationaly last time around, we WON'T be fooled twice. I ain,t going out again so that Billy can get the "deal of the century" only to find out we've been sold a pup like the last agreement eg. unpaid D2D,s & Late Saturdays etc.

Rock and a hard place though ,cos if you don't fight ,you will be even worse off