25.07.1996

Privatisation threat

There are signs that the government’s threat to suspend Royal Mail’s monopoly on delivering mail for less than £1 may be having some effect on the Communication Workers Union leadership.

Although the union membership remains solidly behind the strike action called against teamworking - the latest attempt to squeeze more work in worse conditions for less pay - the leaders have entered into prolonged, intensive negotiations with RM at Acas, the government ‘conciliation’ agency.

While union leaders must always strive to ward off the worst of the employers’ attacks and even attempt to make gains, in the end they hope to do this through cooperating with management in improving efficiency and increasing profits. In the post office this led the CWU to oppose the government clawback of £31 billion ‘excess’ profit from Royal Mail over the next three years and ‘reluctantly’ concede that RM had no option but to increase postage charges. Profits must be kept high if membership improvements are to be paid for, the leaders believe.

Unfortunately, increased efficiency is always won at the workers’ expense, resulting in job losses, increased stress and more intense working patterns.

By and large the threat to suspend the monopoly has not impressed the workers. “The threat is not a surprise - it has just wound them up,” a union representative at Mount Pleasant, London, told me. Mick Lynch, the Birmingham CWU area rep, added: “We won’t be intimidated by government pressure; we won’t concede defeat on that basis.”

However, as Bill Butterworth, Merseyside branch secretary said, “It may be just scaremongering, but we have to take it seriously. Privatisation is still on the Tory agenda - it will be in their manifesto again.”

Local union leaders are certainly taking the threat seriously. Scotland no2 branch, covering Edinburgh and central Scotland, called a mass meeting to coincide with Friday’s strike, in order to discuss “this new dimension”. Eddie Dyas, a branch committee member, told me: “The members do not take kindly to threats or intimidation from Ian Lang or anyone else.” The members have been particularly incensed by references made by Lang, president of the board of trade, to “their bone-headed union”.

Both leaders and workers know that privatisation and ending the monopoly would eat into post office profits and create a new threat to their jobs. But Bill Butterworth points out that the government could still end the monopoly even if the union conceded everything and called off the strikes.

Linking workers’ demands to the employers’ profits is in any case a dead end. The bosses and their government must be made to concede what we need, irrespective of what they say they can afford.

Meanwhile the postal workers’ morale is still sky high. Eddie Dyas is confident: “Unless teamworking is completely removed, the strikes will not be called off.”

Peter Manson