Royal Mail workers are to vote on whether to boycott the handling of downstream-access mailfollowing a unanimous agreement today among postal delegates of the Communication Workers Union
(CWU), in an attempt to prevent the UK postal operator’s competitors from “cherry-picking” the mostlucrative business.The CWU said it would ballot 120,000 members in Royal Mail Group between 22 May and 18 June,with the result to be announced on 19 June. A source at the union told CEP-Research that if themembers vote for a boycott, the boycott could begin by the end of June.
The move follows a decision by CWU postal delegates in March to threaten a boycott unlessregulator Ofcom “immediately takes action to protect the Universal Service”. Privatedownstream-access mail, which the CWU regards as unfair competition, makes up 44 per cent of RoyalMail’s final-mile delivery post-bag.
Statements today from the CWU indicated that the union also saw the ballot as an opportunityto vote against the UK government’s planned privatisation of Royal Mail. Dave Ward, CWU deputygeneral secretary, said: “The tired old policies of privatisation have failed services for decades.We’re balloting our members to back our position to protect the universal service, opposeprivatisation and expose the damage that cherry-picking and unfair competition will do to postalservices if left unchanged.”
Ward said the mail boycott was part of the CWU’s overall strategy to protect postalservices. “Yes, the USO is enshrined in law, but it can’t survive with the cherry-picking which iscurrently allowed,” he said. “We can influence government policy, we can stop the sale of RoyalMail, we will protect the postal service for customers, and we will protect our members’ jobs.”
The CWU’s statements come just a day after the UK’s largest union organisation, the TradesUnion Congress (TUC), vowed to support possible strikes against the privatisation of Royal Mail,which it claims would be “bad for workers, bad for customers and bad for Britain”.
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady yesterday told the CWU’s annual conference thatprevious UK government sales of state-owned assets had led to significant price increases forcustomers and insisted that that the CWU “has the public on its side” with its “Save Our RoyalMail” campaign, which aims to block the planned sale of the UK postal operator.
The UK government plans to push through the sale of state-owned Royal Mail by the end of thisfinancial year, with some expecting it to launch an IPO as early as this summer.
O’Grady commented: “The Government can’t fool anyone that their plans for Royal Mail are inthe public interest. Prices would rocket, small businesses suffer and rural communities would beabandoned. The evidence is clear: privatisation is bad for workers, bad for customers and bad forBritain.”
She said Royal Mail had already modernised and the service was now “more stable than at anypoint in a decade”, but that the current government “want to wreck it”. She added: “Let us say tothe government, our Royal Mail is not for sale. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. The TUC willback the CWU all the way. The TUC will always back our unions, including over co-ordinatedindustrial action wherever unions want it and whenever workers vote for it.”
The TUC will meet tomorrow to discuss plans for the first UK general strike for more than 80years, in response to government austerity measures.
A spokeswoman for the CWU today told CEP-Research that the CWU had no current plans to callstrikes in opposition to the privatisation, although she said the union was “not ruling anythingout”. She said that no decision would be taken on possible industrial action until it was clearwhether the government’s planned sale of Royal Mail was going ahead.
She said the legislation allowing Royal Mail’s privatisation had been in place for two yearsnow, and although there was speculation about a possible IPO this autumn, that “may be completelywrong”. She added: “We are not going to jump unless something concrete happens.”
In response to a suggestion that the CWU may be leaving it too late if it waits for an IPO tobe launched – a process that can take just four weeks to complete – she said: “Industrial actiontakes less time than that to organise.” She welcomed the support of the TUC but was unable to saywhether this would make industrial action more likely.
The CWU yesterday also announced a third strike next Monday by staff at the UK’s 373 Crownpost offices in protest against Post Office plans to close or franchise 76 Crown offices – 20 percent of the network.
Meanwhile, it was reported yesterday that staff at Royal Mail’s European parcel subsidiaryGLS were likely to be left out of the UK government plan to offer free or discounted shares toemployees as part of the company’s privatisation. Under plans being drawn up by the government,Royal Mail employees would receive at least 10 per cent of the company’s shares as part of aprivatisation, the likeliest route for which is a stock market flotation later this year.
One official told Sky News that it was difficult to envisage GLS employees in France,Germany or Italy being invited to participate in a share ownership plan on the same terms asUK-based workers.
A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills declined to commentspecifically on the debate about GLS staff, but said that the government’s plan was that “the UK’spostmen and women should benefit from the future performance of the company”. An insider confirmedto Sky News that the reference to “the UK’s postmen and women” was significant in excludingoverseas-based employees of Royal Mail Group.
A Royal Mail spokesman told CEP-Research: “This is a matter for government to decide.”
The government has yet to decide the exact form of any share windfalls for staff, whichcould be in the form of discounted shares, heavily discounted shares or free shares, according toBusiness Minister Michael Fallon. Royal Mail employs around 130,000 people, including 13,000 withinGLS.
