TUC opposes UK postal liberalisation

The government was told tonight to scrap its plans to end the Royal Mail’s monopoly on delivering letters next year, as the unions joined forces to oppose greater competition in the postal sector.

Labour promised in its election manifesto to keep the post office in the public sector, but since then the trade and industry secretary, Alan Johnson, has floated the idea of a sell-off to workers, on the model of the retail company John Lewis, whose permanent staff are all partners in the business.

The government was told tonight to scrap its plans to end the Royal Mail’s monopoly next year, as the unions joined forces to oppose greater competition in the postal sector.

Ahead of that, the government will end Royal Mail’s sole licence to deliver domestic and business letters from the end of this year.

Most EU member states will gradually phase in postal competition by 2009.

Tonight the TUC voted unanimously to oppose liberalising the postal market with Amicus’s Derek Simpson declaring “a last post for UK jobs” and Communication Workers Union general secretary Billy Hayes saying any partial sell-off would be “a privatisation in my book”.

The battle with the government over the postal service is all the more resonant because the cabinet minister responsible, Mr Johnson, was himself a postman for 18 years, as well as being a former general secretary of the CWU.

The current general secretary, Mr Hayes, earlier told a fringe meeting that ending the monopoly on letters would put at risk the universal coverage offered by the Royal Mail.

He said: “There are 27 million addresses in the UK; does anyone really think these private firms are going to offer universal coverage at the price we do?

“It’s cross-subsidy. The more profitable parts of the network ensure that we can also get a letter to your granny outside Dundee the next day.

“I seriously believe we can defeat both the privatisation agenda and the competition agenda.”

A motion from the CWU, backed by Amicus, called on the government to set aside its commitment to liberalising the postal sector, and to review the existing opened up market for business packages heralded by the Postal Services Act 2000.

Mr Johnson will address the TUC in Brighton tomorrow.

At the fringe meeting called to defend the Royal Mail, the deputy general secretary of the CWU, Dave Ward, said Mr Johnson was fighting shy of a real debate on competition.

He told delegates that, whilst Mr Johnson had a commitment not to privatise the Royal Mail, he “ran a mile” when asked about competition or the question of the monopoly.

Mr Ward claimed that the German and Dutch postal companies had been “planning for years and years” to get into the British market, and that, as the Royal Mail would be prohibited from involvement in the continental postal market until 2009, it was “not a level playing field”.

“Competition attacks the whole concept of a universal service,” he warned.

The Liberal Democrat conference next week in Blackpool will also debate the future of the Royal Mail, with that party’s leadership also expected to call for a “John Lewis-style” workers’ buyout.

However, in what could be a contentious debate, a rival amendment calls for the Royal Mail to be kept in the public sector, and for the monopoly to be either kept or restored.