Deputy General Secretary Dave Ward of the Communication Workers Union (CMU)

Well here we go again.  Hot on the steps of the rampant Tube strikers, it seems like the Postal Workers want a day off…sorry…to protest against their pay, their conditions and plans for modernising…..add in some extra reasons yourself….like protesting that Ronaldo has gone to Real Madrid and that Susan Boyle may not perform on the Britain’s Got Talent live roadshow.  This is getting ridiculous and is a return to Britain’s dark industrial days.  Do union leaders never ever learn!  What will be interesting is what action the Government take.  Will they stand aside and just murmur condemnation?  Or will they get involved and seriously warn of the consequences of CMU demands to the Royal Mail and ultimately the very jobs that the CMU seeks to protect.

The walkout – the first of several threatened 24-hour strikes – will be held next Friday, (convienent for a nice long weekend!).  So the Union hopes that their strike action will scare the Government & Royal Mail to acceding to their demands!  It won’t!…never will…and again they will find that they will alienate public support and be lone voices striking in this recessionary climate.  This strike and future planned ones will bring havoc to mail deliveries, with letters taking up to five days to reach their destination, and will force hundreds of Post Office branches to close.  On top of that the strike will also delay payments on credit cards, loans, and water and power bills, leading to punishing charges for thousands of customers.  Post is already in decline, especially as businesses utilise hi tech methods of communication, especially email.

So what’s it all about?  Dave Ward & the CMU are pushing for the average postal worker’s salary to increase from £19,000 to £24,000 over the next five years. We have discussed salaries in a previous blog and you can make your own comparisons here!  But that’s a 27% increase!!!  27%!!! In a recession.  By their own demands they believe that a postal worker is more valauble to society than a paramedic, nurse or teacher! 

Quite sensibly Royal Mail Management say the increase – I have to say this again….a 27% pay rise – cannot be considered at a time when the organisation is facing stiff competition from private rivals.  This is a very true picture.  Interestingly, the CMU’s pay demands would cost the organisation £ 1bn.  Royal Mail bosses have offered staff  instead a 2.5% pay increase.  On top of this, there would be an £800 dividend payment from its Colleague Shares scheme and a 50% share in any savings above budget in an employee’s local unit.

Dave Ward’s response was: ”Royal Mail have been deliberately misleading the public on what this dispute is about. The Union has never asked for a 27% pay rise and we are not opposed in any shape or form to modernisation.  What Royal Mail is doing is not modernisation. The truth is they are intent on cutting services, cutting jobs and cutting pay.’

The Post Office is in a mess.  Whilst recent headline profits announced showed a doubling of annual profits to £321m, this masks a wider and deepening problem with the state-owned bureaucratic giant, highlighted by almost a £4bn increase in its pension deficit to £6.8bn.  While the headline profits are in the millions, the pensions deficit is in the billions and confirms that the Royal Mail remains in a precarious financial position.  This is frightening to see the pensions deficit has doubled this year and concurrently mail volumes are expected to fall by as much as 10% every year.  The Royal Mail needs urgent modernisation and fundamental reform.  Did you know that the Royal Mail had lost business, including an £8m contract with online retailer Amazon, because it had failed to modernise?  It cannot afford to lose such contracts.  Royal Mail needs to bring in private capital to reinvigorate an organisation in desperate need of cash and innovation to help it compete in a deregulated letters market.

Interestingly, Dave Ward was elected Deputy General Secretary as part of an aggressive anti-government ticket and is associated with a group of left-leaning union figures – the so-called “awkward squad”. (including Bob Crow…leader of the Tube strikers).  But unlike some union leaders, he has not argued for cutting ties with Labour, although the CWU has cut its donations to the party by half.

So Dave, for the sake of your members, get real, reconsider your Union’s action.  The Royal Mail is effectively insolvent because of the pensions deficit.  Striking will lose your members popularity, it will speed up plans for modernisation, companies will look at alternative ways of distributing their post…..and ultimately that will mean job losses of postal workers.  Is that really what the CMU wants.  Is that fair on postal workers.  Wake up and smell the coffee!