Royal Mail's future set for debate

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpres ... wmLFPXCbKQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A debate at Labour's annual conference about the future of the Royal Mail is set to be heard on Wednesday, it has emerged.

An emergency motion submitted by the Communication Workers' Union, calling on the Government to tackle the Royal Mail's huge pension deficit, has been accepted.

The move has come as thousands of postal workers continue to take industrial action in a long running row over jobs, pay and services.

Around 15,000 workers will walk out this week for 24 hours at mail centres across the country, ranging from London and the West Country to Wales and Scotland.

The union is balloting its 120,000 postal members for a national strike, with the result due early next month.

The emergency motion says that Adam Crozier, Royal Mail's chief executive, had recently suggested that the pension deficit may have reached £10 billion.

The motion reads: "The Trustees of the scheme met on Thursday 24th September, but did not announce the level that the deficit had actually reached.

"Conference recognises that it is vital to achieve an early end to this destabilisation of the industry which can only alarm postal workers, and customers of the service. Conference therefore calls upon the Government, as sole shareholder, to take on its responsibility for the deficit and engage with all stakeholders to resolve this matter immediately following conference."

No formal announcement has been made, but sources said the emergency motion was set to be debated on Wednesday.

[chewi]

just so much hot air. Lord Hawhaw, sorry I meant Mandleson, is already lining up his next gig as reported yesterday. conference can waffle on as much as it likes, pass resolutions till it's blue(like the above named pondlife) in the face Brown won't do anything to upset the evilone and he's got as grudge against Posties. Perhaps if we all put our subs into a yacht fund or changed from CWU to something that sounds Russian he would talk to us. But until then we're on our own.