Irish An Post must compete
AN POST is in deep trouble, and at least one former member of its board expects its plight to worsen. In his resignation letter, Paul Kavanagh made it clear who he thinks must take the blame.
The company needs to modernise. The private sector is cutting into the traditional business and will go on doing so. An Post hopes for a future in technology and financial services, not junk mail and cards – which in the resigning director’s view would leave it “in a catastrophic position”.
Mr Kavanagh says that “certain elements” (meaning the trade unions) “cynically disrupt, delay and frustrate all efforts.” If the union agenda prevails, it will result “in far greater downsizing and redundancies in the future.”
His resignation coincided with a recommendation by two Labour Court assessors that the company should pay a wage increase of only five per cent instead of the nine per cent due under the national pay agreement, and backdate it to last January instead of November 2003.
But the reason for the rejection of the recommendation by the Communication Workers’ Union and the CWU threat to mount a strike does not bear out his description of the state of affairs in the company as “an ideological contest”.
This is not a conflict between capitalism and labour, or left and right. It is a conflict between old ideas and new. The assessors accept the company’s plea of inability to pay. The union thinks that a State-owned entity cannot be unable to pay. The taxpayer can bear any burden.
In the age of competition, this is a hopelessly mistaken view. An Post must compete, just like its rivals in the private sector. If it falters, they will gain. Mr Kavanagh rightly says that they could put An Post “in a catastrophic position”.
The confrontation threatens the whole social partnership model. It was set up, in part, to resolve friction between employers and workers and make necessary moves like redundancies easier to agree to. But that will not work unless the unions accept their full responsibilities as social partners. To abdicate them could make the direst predictions come true.
