28.03.2002

Prepare to fight

Post workers resist attack on jobs

This week's announcement by Consignia of massive job losses was immediately met by a commitment from union leaders to fight sackings. "Any attempt by the post office or the government to force through redundancies will be resisted by strike action," said Billy Hayes, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union. Consignia, the state-owned company which runs post offices, Royal Mail and Parcelforce, intends to cut 15,000 jobs in the short term, with perhaps as many as 25,000 "further unavoidable job losses" over the next couple of years, according to trade secretary Patricia Hewitt. "Unavoidable"? Yes, in order to make the company "viable". It is losing £1.5 million a day - placing it, in the words of new chairman Allan Leighton, in a "perilous position". Quite rightly the CWU has rejected this. Consignia's problems - largely of the government's and company's own making - must not be solved at the expense of the workforce. But the CWU leadership appears to accept arguments about the need for cooperation in the interests of profitability, which leads it to advise the government to follow an alternative route to that goal. "The union will work with management to solve the problems of the industry, but the problem is one of underinvestment," reads its statement, which points to an unspent "£2 billion "¦ held in government gilts". However, since Consignia is aiming to save £1.2 billion in just three years, that sum would not take the company very far - assuming you accept, as does the CWU, the cost-accounting bottom line. Since 1998, says the CWU press release, in real terms post office prices have fallen by 13% below the rate of inflation. "During the same period the post office gave back to the government £2 billion under the external finance limit: ie, government dividends. Currently the government is still insisting on a dividend. If postal charges were increased by 1p this would produce £182 million extra revenue, so a 2p price rise would mean almost no losses ... Postal prices in the UK are lower than every other European country apart from Spain." It is certainly inadvisable to adapt trade union demands to the logic of capital. After all, what if the only road to profitability was via 'downsizing'? The post office's monopoly has already been broken for parcel delivery, where Parcelforce is in fierce competition with the likes of Fedex, TNT and DHL. Price rises are not an option in this branch of Consignia and subsidies for Parcelforce would lead to cries of foul play from its rivals. And now the post office's monopoly on letters is about to be broken. It was this that brought hundreds of postal workers onto the streets of London on March 16. Up to 30% of this market will be opened up to rival firms, who will, however, still use Royal Mail's postmen and postwomen for deliveries - a situation similar to telecommunications, where the privatised BT provides much of the infrastructure for its competitors. But rival firms will certainly undercut Royal Mail when it comes to bulk collections. Just over a week after the demonstration CWU fears of "massive job losses" have been realised. If Consignia and its government backers get away with their plans, proportionately the worst hit will be Parcelforce Worldwide. Leighton aims to reduce staff from 11,700 to 6,700. Parcelforce's domestic service will also be slashed, with five parcel distribution centres and 49 of its 101 depots closed down. Naturally this will adversely affect the transport division, where 2,500 jobs are for the chop. The remaining redundancies are split across the various departments. It is clear from all this that, if and when Royal Mail goes the way of Parcelforce, the 40,000 figure might well be an understatement. Mail delivery must remain of necessity highly labour-intensive - automation, even through computer-read post codes, etc, can only go so far. With labour accounting for over 70% of Consignia's costs, 'efficiency' savings come either through service reduction or attacks on working conditions. Up to now the emphasis has been on the latter - which is why around half of all days 'lost' through strikes in 2001 were in the industry. But Leighton - previously the chief executive of hypermarket chain Asda - shed crocodile tears for his newly acquired workforce. "This is probably as tough a thing as I have ever had to do," he lamented. Mind you, he has plenty of other things to occupy his mind, since he is on the board of 10 other companies. Showing his concern for postal workers though, he intends to devote "at least two days a week" to Consignia. Leighton was so distressed by the unpleasant nature of his task that he could not bring himself to answer questions about plans to abandon the Consignia name and revert to plain 'Post Office'. Last year's disastrous change cost £2 million. But this question was a "trivial matter", he said, compared to the immediate future of his employees. Postal workers should really give Leighton and New Labour something to fret about by preparing a militant response. They should reject not only compulsory redundancies, but the whole profit-seeking and privatising agenda, which is driven to a large degree by the aim of marginalising trade unions and further reducing any vestige of control workers have over the way they do their jobs. Of course, privatisation does not necessarily mean the introduction of unbridled market forces into formerly nationalised industries. In many cases they have continued to act as monopolies. They are regulated not by the law of value, but by state bureaucrats - in the post office's case Postcom is already in place, even though it is as yet the effects of private capital rather than private ownership itself which is driving the process. Postcom has the power to fix prices - it has already refused an increase for postage stamps - and can fine the monopoly the equivalent of 10% of its turnover for poor performance. The interests of the working class demand a diametrically opposite approach. Industries like the post office must be brought under the democratic control of their workers and representatives of the millions who use them. Even the demand, insufficient though it is, for old-style nationalised bureaucracy will put the CWU on a collision course with New Labour. Good. At the rally which followed the March 16 demonstration, Billy Hayes said the union "would not finance politicians or other bodies which did not support the principle of a public postal service". As with the RMT, FBU, GMB and Unison, the CWU is starting to place conditions on its link with the Labour Party. What a pity then that its left leadership deliberately chose to organise a demonstration at the very time a Socialist Alliance-sponsored conference was debating the future of the unions' political funds and beginning to develop a strategy to break the hold of the Blairites over the labour movement. Now is the time to take advantage of the disquiet even Labour MPs are feeling at the trajectory of their party: on the one hand the savaging of postal jobs; on the other the U-turn over compensation for Railtrack's shareholders. Added to this is the "deep unease", in the words of an early day motion before the Commons, felt by 120 Labour MPs over Blair's willingness to join forces with Bush in a war against Iraq. Now is the time to go onto the offensive. Alan Fox