16 October 2009 - Steve Lawson - Editors Comment - © Hellmail Postal News

Whether or not the 'leaked' PowerPoint presentation is genuine or not, I'd certainly expect the Royal Mail to have some tactical plan to deal with a prolonged national strike in much the same way that I'd expect the CWU to have its own. It would seem naive to suggest otherwise. From a purely commercial viewpoint it would be irresponsible for the Royal Mail not to have a long term plan for the business above and beyond any negotiations with the union but there is more to this than meets the eye.

It is fairly well known that Lord Mandelson blames the CWU for dragging its heels on modernisation, and both Royal Mail bosses and the government have consistently taken the same view on what is needed to strengthen the business and that strike action will not secure jobs or the future of the company. There is nothing new in that and to be fair, there cannot be many, including postal workers themselves that honestly see a future in a business unable to perform due to national strike action. The Royal Mail can only fight off competition if it actually does the work.

There is though, a second document that for the moment appears to have been buried since the current dispute began. Known as the 'Next Steps' document, it sets out a vision for duty cycles based on four and eight hour shifts. Essentially, as Royal Mail introduces more automation, the company will have much clearer duty spans which presumably puts paid to any hopes by business that early deliveries are high on its list of priorities,

With the Royal Mail moving ever closer to a service that operates in purely office hours, this would present problems for some postal workers both in financial terms and with existing arrangements to collect children from school. In reality, full time jobs within Royal Mail had already begun to dry up even before the recession, with the Royal Mail adopting a policy of recruiting part-timers in line with other European postal operators. The thinking behind this shift is that it would help the company build a more flexible workforce and positively encourage workers with an extension of its 'Cash4hours' scheme to move more full-timers to part-time status. This has become another issue for the Communication Workers Union to get to grips with, running as it has, a lengthy campaign to protect jobs and keep the Royal Mail as a wholly publicly owned 'service' rather than allow the recommendations of the Hooper Report which include the development of a 'strategic partnership' which most describe as part-privatisation.

The CWU has been critical of the Royal Mail's apparent unwillingness to spell out the scale of its modernisation plan although I suspect that even if it does have a three or four year plan, technology is moving at such a rapid pace, plans are likely to be subject to change in response to any developments in the market. Not only that, if the Conservatives gain power at the next election, they will be quick to resurrect the Postal Services bill and I imagine, most of the recommendations in the Hooper Report.

The CWU's demands seem unachievable given the urgent need for restructuring to the network and the way it operates - or at least not without the cost of a reversal being dropped on the entire electorate. That in no way implies that the union's concerns are not valid, but a need to curb public spending, political will, market forces, consumer demand and further revisions to the EU Postal Directive are leaving the Royal Mail with little option but to completely overhaul the way it works.

During the week I've been in close talks with a TV production company for a forthcoming documentary on the Royal Mail. I have to say I tend to approach such enquiries with a large degree of scepticism and I'm notorious for not being willing to contribute to anything that in my view amounts to purely headline-grabbing sensationalism or that I feel is wholly unfair and could damage a business and directly affect jobs (and from personal experience, production teams invariably use up much of my time), but where I feel the subject matter is genuinely worth examining and in the interest of consumers, then I do occasionally play ball.

Its worth pointing out that matters that are in the interests of the public are not necessarily in the public interest and knowing the difference is crucial for any journalist. It is also primarily what sets the tabloids apart from the broadsheets and an important distinction I learnt early on in my writing career and helped set the style of Hellmail.

I have remarked on numerous occasions, that in trying to pinpoint the problems faced by the Royal Mail, one has to look at the wider picture and certainly within the context of the European vision for postal services rather than being wholly focused on the entrenchment between the Royal Mail and the CWU. The EU directive is driving this change and even if the dispute were taken to arbitration, it would require an extremely knowledgeable arbitrator to tackle this one. Arbitration has not been successful in the past and it would seem even more unlikely that the introduction of a third party would bear much fruit.

Left as it is though, this dispute will inevitably become a bitter row between the CWU and central government, a scenario the government will be keen to avoid ahead of a general election. However, with the 2007 pay & modernisation agreement so ambiguous and apparently now in tatters, Mandelson may be determined to distance the government from this dispute but as the chief shareholder, the government does have a responsibility to resolve this. Simply allowing regulation to 'tick over' and stand back is no substitute for leadership with the Royal Mail in such crisis.

If the Postal Services Bill is dead, then better to admit it, act decisively and decide what has to be done. With or without union agreement, the last thing the UK needs in a recession is a postal service that is broken.

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