Postal workers condemn job cuts

MORNING STAR 4th October 2001
POSTAL WORKERS CONDEMN JOB CUTS.

By by MIKE AMBROSE POSTAL union CWU dismissed Consignia’s decision to axe over 15,000 jobs yesterday as a “madcap” scheme.

CWU deputy general secretary John Keggie said that the government “must ask how a business that was in profitability for 20 years before commercial freedom was granted is now in such a financial mess.”

Consignia admitted the job cuts in an internal briefing sent to managers.

The company argued that the business was moving into loss and that there must be cost cutting over the next 18 months to create a much leaner operation.

The briefing stated: “We want to take out 15 per cent of our cost base, which equals £1.2 billion.

“This means reducing our employee and non-employee costs by 15 per cent. We must do this by March 2003.”

The memo suggested that the company would probably “be losing something like one in 10 of our people in some areas over the next 18 months.

“We have not yet made any decisions around how we will be implementing this, who will be affected and what the packages on offer will comprise.

“This is because we want to do this with the co-operation of the unions and we will be discussing this decision with them over the next few weeks.”

But Mr Keggie said that “blaming efficiency levels and the workforce is just not on and acceptable.

“After all, this is the same workforce that made the Post Office a profitable and successful organisation for over two decades.

“Industrial action is non-existent, therefore the board cannot use the same old excuse about blaming the workforce, ” Mr Keggie pointed out.

“The measures being proposed by the Consignia board can only be described as a slash-and-burn policy.

“Any attempt to outsource parts of the industry into private hands or to introduce compulsory redundancy will be vigorously opposed, ” Mr Keggie warned.

He called for a review of the running of the Post Offce by the board, “which must be answerable to the public and the employees within the industry as to why we are in this position.

“This latest madcap plan to slice up the industry and reduce the workforce by 15 per cent cent is ill-conceived and destructive, ” Mr Keggie charged.

A Consignia spokesman claimed that there was no intention to reduce the workforce by 15 per cent.

He said that Consignia was an £8 billion operation which was moving into loss, and, unless “drastic action” was taken, the organisation would fail as a business.

“That’s why the executive board has decided that we must take steps to cut our costs over the next 18 months to create a much leaner business.

“The levels of inefficiency in the business, despite our best efforts to control them, are crippling us, ” the spokesman claimed.

“We are living beyond our means and we need to get a grip of this now, ” he added. PAGE: 1 SECTION: News