Consignia posts victories on pay and competition
Consignia, the postal group, finally had something to celebrate last night with an outline deal on pay and indications that its regulator would back down on the introduction from next month of further competition in postal services.
Leaders of the Communication Workers’ Union confirmed that they had reached broad agreement with Consignia over wages for their 145,000 members.
“We hope to have something to put to our members by the end of this week,” a spokesman said.
Consignia said “substantial progress” had been made in talks, adding “agreement can be reached.”
The union had threatened strike action in pursuit of a 5% pay claim, having turned down a Consignia offer of a 2.8% increase. On Monday, John Roberts, the chief execu tive, and Jerry Cope, head of mail services, helped to defuse growing antagonism between the two sides by forgoing their 10% pay rise agreed by the Department of Trade and Industry.
Meanwhile, Postcomm, the postal regulator, indicated that it was willing to delay proposals to allow rivals to deliver bulk mail, for fear of a collapse in services. Graham Corbett, Postcomm’s chairman, said he was willing to alter the arrangements “if we are presented with good reasons for changing our minds”.
Consignia, which is losing pounds 1.5m a day, has not formally responded yet to the consultation by Postcomm but has repeated arguments made by Allan Leighton, its acting chairman.
He said: “The Postcomm proposal to open up 30% of the market in just a few weeks’ time threatens the universal service. . . For Consignia, the regulator’s approach represents death by a thousand cuts.”
This argument has alarmed Labour politicians who fear their plans for opening up the Post Office to greater competition might land them with an embarrassment similar to the Railtrack row.
The DTI insisted that it would not intervene in an issue that was essentially between Postcomm and Consignia. A spokesman added, however: “The primary duty of Consignia is to maintain a universal postal service.”
Rival postal operators fear that the introduction of competition will be delayed. Hays, which has a one-year licence to deliver small volumes of business post, said it wanted to see longer-term deals.
Fears that interim licences might not be renewed discouraged customers from switching firms, said Bob Lawson, Hays’ chairman. Copyright 2002 The Guardian. Source: Financial Times Information Limited – FT McCarthy.
