Royal Mail: Privatisation of the post service a lost cause?

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Trade union activists might not realise it from the lack of discussion on the left but the Con-Dem Coalition is well on track to get its bill on the privatisation of Royal Mail through parliament this year.
Maybe the reason for this is that it looks like being a defeat for the anti-cuts movement, and therefore is best not mentioned. Maybe it is because the union, the CWU, is running such a low key campaign, or maybe a combination of both. This would be the government’s first wholesale privatisation and, if the union allows it to be carried through, a major victory in their war against public services.

Privatisation of Royal Mail would endanger the service in several ways. While nothing is laid down, it is unlikely that a private company would want to retain the Saturday delivery, nor that they would want to keep the current system whereby a letter to all parts of the UK costs the same, regardless of the differential cost involved. Despite the government keeping post offices publicly owned, it is unlikely that a private company would want to continue to use a loss-making system and this will inevitably lead to more post office closures.

On the contrary, their desire as always to minimise costs and maximise profit means an almost inevitable worsening of the service. Think of the things Royal Mail has done in recent years which have reduced the service – then multiply this several times over.

And anyone taken in by the argument that Royal Mail needs to “modernise” should be aware that trials of the latest sorting machines, supposed to sort mail ready for delivery, reduce the time necessary by a total of seven minutes! This is about cutting jobs, not improving the service.

Of course, a sell-off would mean a further major assault on the terms and conditions of postal workers. But they are hoping to persuade them to accept privatisation with the sop of giving 10% of shares to the workforce. They have tried to imply this somehow means workers’ involvement in running the business (“the John Lewis model”) even though it is nothing of the kind.
Alongside selling off the business, the government is taking over the deficit in the pension fund. It is also reviewing postal regulation – since the liberalisation of postal delivery, Royal Mail has been effectively subsidising its competitors by delivering their mail at a loss. These are both long-standing demands of the union. Of course, they are now just a part of making Royal Mail attractive to potential buyers rather than solving its problems as a public service.

But where is the campaign against this sell off? There isn’t one. The responsibility for this has to rest with the CWU. Despite the fact that privatisation was in the Lib Dems’ election manifesto, the government’s founding document and the Queen’s speech, the union’s campaign against the sell off only started in September. Even then the strategy only consists of exerting pressure on the 71 Coalition government’s MPs with the smallest majorities, not a nationwide campaign among the public.

The “Keep the Post Public Coalition” attempts to draw in various parties and organisations, but with no clear idea of what this is meant to achieve, and this is emphasised over working with other unions, trades councils and anti-cuts campaigns. The national union has positively opposed making the issue part of the general movement in defence of public services, believing that this approach is more likely to be successful in persuading enough Tories and Lib Dems to vote against.

The message sent is sometimes very confused, if not reactionary. Thus it is sometimes stressed that the company taking over Royal Mail may well be “foreign”, and this fact is used to attempt to win over not only right wing Tory MPs but also UKIP! Nor has there been a serious attempt to alert postal workers to the dangers (and argue against the share issue) and, more importantly, mobilise them to campaign against it.

This has been left to the usual activists.

It is difficult to see why the campaign is so weak. Billy Hayes, General Secretary, and other union officers have all the right arguments against privatisation, but obviously no strategy to defeat it. The campaign is even weaker than that against Mandelson’s attempt at privatisation under Labour (and that only involved a 50% sell off).

A part of the problem is that Hayes and Dave Ward (the Deputy General Secretary responsible for the postal side of the union) continually stress that “the union has agreed to the transformation/modernisation of the business, there is no need for privatisation”. But the “transformation” they flaunt – the outcome of the deal which ended last year’s strikes – has also, in fact, made Royal mail ripe for sell off. The deal was widely predicted to lead to the closure of a large number of mail centres around the country and the accompanying loss of jobs <ital>with the agreement of the union<>, and this process is now well underway, with the national union noticeable by its absence from those campaigns which have formed against closure.

The situation has got so bad that the London Divisional Representatives of the union eventually wrote to the union head office early in November, voicing serious criticism of the campaign, saying “in our opinion the CWU at the moment is sleepwalking towards privatisation”.

They point out that of the 71 targeted MPs, 64 voted yes at the second reading of the Bill. They argue for a substantial stepping up of the campaign if we are to stop privatisation, although they also argue for working with UKIP!
Of course, the Postal Services Bill passing through parliament is not the end of the issue – the government has still to find a buyer (there has been no indication yet as to who this might be) and finalise the price. A campaign could still halt the sell off at this late stage, but only if the groundwork is prepared in advance.
Activists in other trades unions, Labour Parties and anti-cuts campaigns need to take this up as a matter of urgency. If you haven’t already contacted your local CWU branch, do so immediately and offer to help campaign on the streets against this approaching disaster.

A London postal worker

Campaign materials (petitions, leaflets, model motions etc) are available at
http://www.keepthepostpublic.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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