Modernisation plan for mail services will fail to deliver

[johnnyp]

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Modernisation plan for mail services will fail to deliverHARRY REID January 15 2009
The main industrial dispute I covered as a young reporter was the seven-week postal workers' strike of 1971. It was a glorious failure. The workers wanted a rise of 15%. The employer (in effect, the government) offered 8%. After almost two months, the strike collapsed, and the mail workers had to accept a humiliating settlement of 9%.

Few protracted strikes end without some acrimony, and the postal workers were angry not with the public - who generally backed them - or even their employer but rather with other trades unions which offered scant support.

The strikers were led by the ebullient figure of Tom Jackson, whom many will remember for his huge handlebar moustache, which seemed to have a life of its own when he stepped up the oratory at mass meetings. When he came to Scotland to address rallies, there was great excitement. He had charisma, and he milked it. His press relations were excellent. But as a politician he was naive and he was distrusted by other union leaders.

The public went without their mail for several weeks, and did not seem too concerned. That is the worry for mail workers as they seek to protect their industry from the so-called "part-privatisation" currently being driven by Lord Mandelson. Almost 40 years ago, when the post was king, ordinary people - and businesses, too - discovered they could do without it.

Nowadays nearly everybody is able to communicate electronically. Post is no longer king; it's more of a tired old duke on the sidelines.

Yet the old-fashioned mail is not dead yet. People still need it and want it. The same applies to their ever-dwindling number of post offices. I remember trying to work out why the postal workers had such support (not that it did them much good) in 1971.

People liked their posties. The man - it was always a man then - who delivered your mail was one of the various people who provided social continuity, a kind of continuity that has been long since lost.

You got to know him, and he got to know you. Indeed, sometimes posties knew too much; they could be notoriously curious about the mail they were delivering, though this was usually tolerated with affection.

Nowadays there is much more social fluidity and few posties seem to be on the same "walk" for long. The people who want to chop up the Royal Mail belong to this not-so-brave new world.

Bulk contracts, where they can introduce modern logistics and sorting systems, excite them. It is relatively easy to make a profit out of collecting, sorting and moving mass mail. Big businesses, and government departments, no doubt benefit enormously from increased efficiency in these areas.

But the Royal Mail also provides a universal service; that is, it is committed to delivering, six days a week, to every last letterbox at the end of every last long and winding road.

It is impossible to make big money out of this service. It is just that: a service. On an average day, our postal workers deliver more than 80 million items to more than 25 million addresses.

Some of these addresses are very difficult to reach. Yet this service, for most members of the public, is the core justification for the Royal Mail. Peter Mandelson and the other "modernisers", who are intent on part-privatisation, know they cannot slice off this essential service - as much social as economic - from the overall business.

The postal workers also know this, and it is in their interest to play this up. If incompetent and irresponsible banks can be bailed out, so can this universal service.

Where I think the old-fashioned mail could effectively be modernised is in collection, not delivery. We have had pillar boxes for more than 150 years (they were introduced, if not actually invented, by the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope, a senior Post Office employee). There are far too many of them.

Where I live, there are five separate pillar boxes in a very small area. Four of them are little used; this has been confirmed by local postal workers. The other is very popular. It is situated by some shops at a busy crossroads and occasionally overflows, so much so that you can easily retrieve mail that has been crammed into it. (I suspect this might be one of the reasons why so much mail goes missing.) There is a case for removing underused pillar boxes, so long as there is another one relatively nearby. Those that are most used could be redesigned, and made considerably bigger. This would add efficiency without unduly inconveniencing anyone.


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