We need an end to the Royal Sale, not just a delay

By Tom Miller / @tom_miller85

The government continues to maintain that Royal Mail is not financially viable (despite it now beginning to turn a pretty big profit thanks to reforms which have already taken place). Perversely, this is blamed on the state of the pension fund, which was devastated by the Conservatives…so it is a nasty coincidence that over the past decade Labour have failed to fix it.

In any event, a whole load of methods of reform have been suggested by others such as Compass and the CWU, but these proposals have been roundly ignored. Does the Government propose to raise the money it says makes up a pension shortfall from selling off part of the organisation? If so, how is it so that it can afford to delay its bill, even in the face of a sell-off being an unjusitfiably cheap one? Isn’t it ironic that New Labour’s response to the Tory efforts to wreck postal pension schemes is to attempt to implement the proceeds of their bankrupt ideology onto the rest of the service?

Alongside that, why is it that a Labour government is so committed to fighting the ‘producer interests’ (which could also be described as ‘the people who make the country run’, or indeed ‘the people who fund and deliver our leaflets’)? The BERR document on Royal Mail privatisation makes it quite clear that part of the rationale for the proposed deal is the reduction of ‘industrial disputes’. Presumably this would be done by splitting down units of the company to reduce the power of proposed strikes, a ‘gate gourmet’ style so-called solution to legitimate self defence. The ban on secondary action would guarantee that the power of postal workers to reduce some of the wilder suggestions of their well monied masters.

This Bill doesn’t need delaying. It needs a fundamental rethink.