Tag: Royal Mail

A Conservative view on UK Post Offices

Posted by | Sep 13, 2007 | |

The Conservative Party’s Quality of Life taskforce report, chaired by John Gummer and Zac Goldsmith, was released today. It has some interesting views on the future post offices:

“Shop, post office, church, pub, and primary school – these are some of the indicators of a vibrant rural community, but few villages possess all five. However, they remain vital for the minority of the population – e.g. young people, mothers in one-car families, the elderly – who do not have access to a car. Conservatives should aim to minimize the closure of these services and stimulate innovative ways of providing alternatives for villages that do not have them.

Sub post offices play an important role in village life and could become again a vibrant centre for rural services. In the age of the internet, they already perform a useful role in mail order fulfillment. Their demise is partly because of the failure of Government to design modern benefit delivery packages that would make use of their services and partly the legacy of Post Office history where labyrinthine systems, a lack of interest in the network, and a failure to keep up with modern retailing was bred by a belief that the system had a God-given right to survive.

There are clear indications that the Post Office has changed significantly and would be capable, given the chance, of running a sensibly sized rural network providing a wide range of services in communities that would otherwise be without. Instead of complaining when supermarkets do not want to continue to house a post office, we should be redesigning the sub-post office so that it becomes a much sought after adjunct to a business as well as a business in its own right.

To that end we should initiate an independent enquiry chaired by a successful retailer and with full access to Government Ministers and Departments, to recommend innovative structures and technologies to make the Post Office rural network modern and indispensable. It should also be charged with advising Government on the redesign of its services so that they could be provided better through the agency of the local post office.

In the meantime, Conservatives should pledge to keep the GBP 150m a year subsidy for rural sub post offices in order to maintain the network while exploring radical solutions for service delivery in rural areas, which might include their being the agent for suitable local authority services, the centre for parish council transport-sharing schemes, and the provider of an emissions-saving means of taking services to rural customers.”

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Royal Mail faces further strikes

Posted by | Sep 12, 2007 | |

Postal workers threatened to stage further strikes by the end of the month unless a bitter row over pay and conditions is resolved.

As the Communication Workers Union announced the move and the Royal Mail vowed to press on with its modernization plans, Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary, held out the prospect of coordinated industrial action in the months to come.

Mr. Barber said unions would be brought together under the umbrella of the TUC’s public service liaison committee and said that the government would pay “a heavy price” if it did not pay attention to the warnings. With more than 2m public sector workers in dispute over pay and job threats it is understood the committee will meet shortly.

Royal Mail said that it could “no longer delay the next steps in modernizing the business to enable it to compete on an equal footing with other operators and will now begin to make the changes which have been discussed with our people and our trade unions for many months”. The CWU claims that up to 40,000 jobs could be lost as a result of the proposals.

The union said that there had been “significant progress” in areas such as pay but Royal Mail had refused to budge on its pension proposals which would mean closing the existing scheme to new employees, raising employee contributions and increasing the retirement age.

There was also disagreement over the start time for early shifts which could reduce earnings of some workers by up to Pounds 25 a week. According to the union, Royal Mail was offering a two-year deal worth 6.7 per cent compared with its previous one-year offer worth 2.5 per cent.

Royal Mail said it had offered CWU both a short-term resolution to the dispute within the amount available for pays this year, as well as a longer-term solution “which we believe is in the interests of all our people and the business”.

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Royal Mail is being pushed too hard

Posted by | Sep 12, 2007 | |

With regard to recent industrial action by Royal Mail postal workers, although this probably lost the company some business, I think it needs to be seen in a wider context than a pay rise.

The Blair government supposedly gained agreement for a European free market with mail services but this is not being complied with by other European countries.

Successive governments have creamed off money from the Royal Mail rather than allowing this to be used for modernization.

The present management has proposed a worker shareholder partnership but the Government has refused it.

While other mail firms can cherry pick the more lucrative business deals leaving Royal Mail with the least profitable ones, yet the Government insists on a flat rate stamp regardless of distance.

Although postal workers deliver for rival businesses there is no reciprocal arrangement. The situation is therefore not a “level playing field”.

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EU to examine all German subsidies to Deutsche Post in new state aid probe

Posted by | Sep 12, 2007 | |

EU regulators will investigate the German state subsidies of Deutsche Post, once the state-owned postal service, to determine if it bolstered commercial operations with public money, the European Union said Wednesday.

The EU’s executive arm said rivals had complained that Deutsche Post AG used government money to undercut the private sector by selling services “too cheaply” to banking arm Postbank and parcel service DHL – one of the world’s three biggest delivery companies.

Deutsche Post immediately denied any illegal subsidies, calling the investigation “surprising and completely incomprehensible.” Deutsche Post said regulators have reviewed company accounts numerous times.

In Berlin, Finance Ministry spokesman Torsten Albig said the investigation had been expected and expressed confidence the Commission would clear the company in end.

The new investigation comes on top of the EU’s 2002 order for Deutsche Post to repay the German government 572 million euros (USD 791 million) in public money that the company had used to finance a rebate pricing policy for its door-to-door parcel business.
Governments usually pay postal operators to run the costly mail delivery service for the country, but they are forbidden from using the money for other services.

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Royal Mail condemns CWU threat of further strike action

Posted by | Sep 11, 2007 | |

Royal Mail is disappointed that, despite a four week “period of calm” to allow talks to take place, the Communication Workers Union continues to ignore the stark challenges facing the company and has announced they will call further strikes. The CWU’s decision is in spite of Royal Mail offering the union a short term resolution to the dispute, within the amount of money available for pay this year and at no extra cost to the company, as well as a longer term solution which we believe is in the interests of our people, our customers and the future of business.

During the talks we also made it clear to the CWU that our clear aim in consulting on pensions is to protect our existing people’s pensions as far as possible and not increase their contributions – while the union wants to keep the scheme open to new recruits, even though they know it will disadvantage the postmen and postwomen who already work for the company.

Royal Mail has also offered that any postmen and postwomen affected by changes in their starting time because of new EU transport legislation will keep their early start allowance for as long as they continue in their current job even though they will be starting later. Our aim in making this offer is to ensure the postmen and postwomen affected do not lose money as a result of the change – but the union is opposed to this offer.

The union’s stance on such issues does not reflect the views and interests of the vast majority of our people but rather the interest of activists within the CWU. We will be talking to our people over the next few days as we decide how to make progress on these issues.

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