POSTAL STRIKES: Don’t blame the unions?

Nigel Bruce, head of marketing at Triangle Management Services, investigates the recent and ongoing postal strikes across the world for Post&Parcel. I don’t believe in coincidence. So when I read that there are postal strikes in the UK, Brazil, France and very nearly in Australia, I look for a thread of commonality between these scenarios – to paraphrase “problem global, strike local”.

Or am I simply seeking a neat, intellectually satisfying common theme that enables me to put postal strikes into one thought box and then move on?

We all know that the postal industry is under huge pressure. Declining letter volumes and e-substitution combined with the lead weight of the USO mean that national posts (and that is the sector we are talking about – private postal workers, at least by comparison, seem remarkably content) are struggling – in many cases to survive. It is reckoned that if they were private companies over 25% of the world’s national posts would have gone into liquidation! But here’s the rub – the postal industry, in major part constituting the national posts, is one of the world’s biggest employers, with a massive global head count. So declining revenues + overstaffed workforce = redundancies = typical militant union inspired strikes – surely it’s as simple as that?

Maybe, but possibly not. In the UK, the imminent strike action is about modernisation. In Brazil it’s about money. The French strike was founded on privatisation fears, whilst in Australia, although the strike ballot was not allowed to take place by the regulator, the issue came to the fore over contracting out roles within the national post. So clearly, there is a commonality. As the postal industry changes the unions are rightly protective of their membership, and are seeking the best deal for them – whether it be job security or wages.

Everywhere in the world, trade union membership, and their influence, has declined dramatically over the last 50 years – the curve represents a steady falling off in numbers to a point where in many countries and in most industries, their reach is only significant at a local or branch level.

But in the postal industry, as has been evidenced above, their influence is still significant. They can call national strikes that do have an effect and are very damaging to national economies. And of course, as a result, postal customers seek alternatives, further impacting on national postal revenues, exacerbating the need for change, which the unions fight against. More vicious circle than virtuous circle!

So how do we break this depressing Catch 22 situation?  How do we smash this seemingly ever decreasing whirlpool? The answer lies in management.  The senior executives of national posts are not, in the main, entrepreneurs. They are custodians, who are seeking to pass the (state owned) business on to the next person in line in at least as good, hopefully better, shape than they found it.  That generally calls for maintenance and enhancement strategies – evolution rather than revolution.

However the technological developments of the last decade, and the changing customer behaviours driven by it, have led to the most significant postal paradigm shift since the stamp was invented. New rules, new dynamics, new standards, new requirements. Whose job is it to plan, design and implement? You guessed it, management.

The human race has historically been less than capable of dealing effectively with revolution, and in this particular scenario the inflexibility of the unions has been a significant impediment to change, so management are due some sympathy. But the next time your mailbox is empty because postal workers are striking, don’t, as a knee jerk reaction, simply and solely blame the unions. Albeit over the years they haven’t helped, in their own way they are simply looking after their own and trying to secure a future, whilst management are scratching their heads, wondering where the future is.

Do you agree with Nigel? Please comment below.