CWU National Briefing

National Briefing.
January 15th.
London.




The briefing was called to discuss the Hooper Review and the response of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) to it.

Dave Ward the Deputy General Secretary (Postal), of the CWU, opened the meeting and said that the campaign would be both industrial and political and would have three objectives:

Defeating plans for any privatisation
Resolving the Pension's issue.
Modernisation of the Royal Mail but on CWU terms and not on Royal Mails.

Dave Ward said that the Government had accepted the Union's argument on pensions. However, making good the deficit in the pension fund wasn't at the cost of accepting privatisation. Royal Mail had a 17 year plan in place for dealing with the pension deficit so any Government money (tax payers money) that was given for the deficit would transform Royal Mail's finances.

The interim report from Hooper had stated that competition had not worked and this was a position the CWU welcomed. The finished report seems to have removed that reference.

Billy Hayes, the General Secretary of the CWU, then added that we must be mindful that the press do not try and divide us. He also said that we seem to have been engaged in permanent revolution since 2001 when we were told that liberalisation would solve all of our under investment problems. He also mentioned that we had defeated Alan Leighton's (The chairman of Royal Mail) view of privatisation in 2004 and 2007 and that our past work has yielded good results.

He also stated that the Royal Mail had made a commitment to invest 280 million back into the pension fund over a 17 year period in a previous pay agreement. Obviously if the Government took over the issue of the pension funding then that leaves Royal Mail with an additional 280 million a year for investment.

He then went on to say that Hooper does not believe in modernisation but believes in privatisation. The CWU has a vision of modernisation with the post office remaining in the public sector.

An outline of the Political campaigning was given by John Grogan. MP.

An Early day Motion (EDM 428) had been laid before Parliament and already had the support of 82 MPs. As Parliament had only just resumed this was the first opportunity to gauge reaction but more and more MP's would be lobbied to sign it. CWU sponsored MP's have been contacted by Headquarters to ask them to sign it.

John stated that the Labour Party must honour its election commitments regarding Royal Mail and also argued that if Royal Mail was advertising for a new Chair then it should appoint one who is committed to Royal Mail.

The text of the EDM is published at the end of this report.

The CWU have appointed “Compass” to lobby around the Labour Party and a presentation was given by Neil Lawson from “Compass”. (www.compassonline.org.uk). Parallels were drawn between this campaign and the “Stand by your Post” campaign of 1994 and one new area identified is the internet and web based technologies.

He stated that there is a clear need for Royal Mail to be modernised following years of under investment but did not consider that Royal Mail needed private money for that. He did ask if we wanted to have a debate in a few years time on a windfall tax for Royal Mail if the profit was going into the private sector.

Various speakers then made contributions from the floor including

A call for a special national conference. However, in reply it was argued that there wouldn't be time to get one organised.
The need for a political and industrial campaign and the need to mobilise public support.
It was argued that it wasn't the Hooper Report but the Mandelson Report and that a job description for the Chair's job does need to emphasise for a chair who believes in Public Services.
Stand by your Post was successful in 1994 without a day being lost to industrial action but there is a lot of work for branches to do.

Jeremy Baugh, head of research at CWU Headquarters, then gave a presentation on the breakdown of the Hooper reports.


Kevin Slocombe, editor of the CWU Magazine “The Voice” then gave an overview of the Communication Strategy. This will include briefings to members, advertisements in the media and also a billboard campaign. He did also state that the national union will be looking for 5% of members in workplaces to receive regular communications and updates. He also echoed the comments made by Neil Lawson (from Compass) regarding the use of the internet and “cyber activism”.


Text of EDM 428.
EDM 428
 
ROYAL MAIL
13.01.2009

Smith, Geraldine
That this House notes that the Labour Party Conference 2008, with the backing of Ministers, supported a vision of a wholly publicly-owned, integrated Royal Mail Group; welcomes the conclusion of the Hooper Report that the current universal service obligation offered by Royal Mail, including six days a week delivery, must be protected and that the primary duty of a new regulator should be to maintain it; further welcomes the recommendations in the Report that the Government should take responsibility for the pensions deficit which followed an extended contributions holiday; endorses the call for a new relationship between management and postal unions and welcomes the commitment of the Communication Workers Union to negotiate an agreement which would support the modernisation of the industry; observes that in 2007 the Government agreed to a £1.2 billion loan facility on commercial terms to modernise Royal Mail operations; rejects the recommendation of the Hooper Report to sell a minority stake in Royal Mail which would risk fracturing one of Britain's greatest public services; further notes that the Government is currently advertising for a new Chair of Royal Mail; and urges the Secretary of State to appoint a Chair and management team who are committed to the principles of a modern public enterprise.

A Brief History of the Privatisation of Royal Mail

This is not the first time that the Royal Mail has been under threat of privatisation. During the 1990s when John Major was prime minister there was an attempt to privatise Royal Mail. The position of the former Union of Communication Workers (UCW) was to argue for greater commercial freedom. However, not the commercial freedom for others to cherry pick the profitable parts.

The Royal Mail has always been run on a cross network subsidy i.e. the cost of sending a letter from one end of the country to another was subsidised by mail that never left a postcode area and for many, many years the Royal Mail was one of the geese that laid golden eggs for the treasury by making a profit. The profits from the industry could be re invested in vital public services, which was the same as the profit from all the public industries. This isn't a posting about the need to renationalise public industries but merely to make the point that the people had the profit. Having said that though how much cheaper would council tax bills be if the profit could be re- invested into vital public services such as the emergency services, the NHS, pensions and education.

The threat that the Royal Mail is facing today is different to that faced previously.

Various Directives have been issued by the European Union that the UK Government has had to introduce into domestic law to regulate the postal industry. Coupled with the creation of Postcomm to “encourage competition they have done little more than run Royal Mail into the ground while the competition fight over what's left.

We as tax payers are also being asked to pay into the pension deficit to make it more attractive to a partnership. However, the competition has been cherry picking at the profitable parts that funded the pension scheme in the first place. In a nutshell, the taxpayers are paying the deficit to allow the competitors to take the profit that rightfully belongs to us.

This is not the privatisation of Royal Mail. It is the destruction of a public service.

Colin Elcome.
Personal Capacity