Postal Strike threatened over Parcelforce shake-up
UNION LEADERS yesterday threatened to call the first strike across the UK’s entire state-owned postal and parcel delivery service for more than 20 years. The controversial threat comes after Consignia, the renamed Post Office group, threatened to close Parcelforce.
About 160,000 workers at the group are expected to be balloted after Consignia told union leaders that the loss-making parcel delivery service will close unless workers agree to become self-employed.
Under the terms of a plan drafted by the accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, Consignia intends to make 75 per cent of its Parcelforce staff self-employed in the near future, with the rest changing over within the next five years. PwC has cautioned that unless Consignia adopts the plan, called Apollo, the unit, which loses about Pounds 44 million a year, will have to close for good.
The Communication Workers Union has now protested to Patricia Hewitt, the Trade and Industry Secretary, about the plan.
The move comes just days after the union had reluctantly agreed to a survival plan recommending that one quarter of Parcelforce’s 10,000-plus workforce voluntarily change over to self-employed status.
It also follows the controversial decision to phase out the second delivery of letters, which was revealed this week.
John Keggie, deputy general secretary of the CWU, wrote to Ms Hewitt: “I fear unless they reconsider their position we will all be faced with a very public and politically damaging dispute.”
The CWU is furious that the Apollo plan has suddenly been sprung despite an agreement to share information after the Lord Sawyer report into industrial relations problems at Consignia. Mr Keggie said: “We no longer have any confidence in Consignia. It seems that PwC and the new directors are running the operation rather than the chief executive.”
A strike would not affect Christmas mail but would be likely to be staged in January and February.
A spokesman for Consignia said: “We can confirm that we have held initial discussions with our unions to discuss the future of our parcels business. As the unions know, this business has made losses consistently for the past ten years, a position we can no longer sustain.”
Parcelforce faces heavy competition from DHL, TNT and White Arrow among others and has tried to strengthen its market share by going for high-volume business. However, this type of work pays relatively poorly.
In October Consignia announced plans to cut its costs by Pounds 1.2 billion, a move that could trigger 15,000 job losses. Last year Consignia made an operating loss of Pounds 3 million and had to take interest from its reserves lodged with the Treasury in order to pay the Government a dividend of Pounds 93 million.
The group is facing increased competition for its mail services with two new rivals winning licences this week.
