CWU calls for industry-wide postal obligation

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CWU calls for industry-wide postal and broadband service obligation

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The CWU today (Thursday) called on Ofcom to apply the universal service obligation met by Royal Mail, across the board to all postal companies operating in the UK. The CWU also challenged Ofcom to introduce a statutory universal obligation for broadband.

Currently, the independent communications regulator only monitors Royal Mail but the union wants to see all end-to-end mail delivery companies having to operate under the same terms as the newly-privatised Royal Mail.

The call comes as CWU makes its submission to Ofcom's Draft Annual Plan 2014/15. Recommendations in the submission include:

Ofcom should apply the universal service obligation across the postal industry

Ofcom should introduce a major e-literacy campaign to educate the seven million people currently not online about the benefits of the internet and to encourage them to take up broadband access

Ofcom should introduce a statutory universal service obligation for broadband to help take faster broadband services to all homes and businesses

Ofcom should standardise the complaints handling procedures across the broadband provider industry

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CWU general secretary Billy Hayes said: "Ofcom should introduce a statutory universal service obligation for broadband. It's one of the country's fastest-growing industries and Ofcom, and the Government, should do all they can to encourage better and faster broadband services. Currently, the level of public investment will not meet the Government's target of delivering 95 per cent broadband coverage by 2017. Ofcom must address this issue and develop a clearer strategy that recognises the difficulties of delivering broadband to rural areas.

"Ofcom has put a number of measures in place over the past year which we welcome, such as a improving the ease with which customers can switch between broadband suppliers. However, we call on Ofcom to level the playing field in the postal industry and apply the same standards to all postal companies, not just Royal Mail.

"Customers value and rely on the six day per week service offered by Royal Mail, a standard we think should be applied across the board rather than allowing Royal Mail's competitors to cherry-pick when and where to deliver mail.

"The narrow pursuit of profit by Royal Mail's competitors with no obligation to meet the broader needs of customers, also sees cost cutting at the expense of the jobs, pay and conditions of postal workers across the UK by engaging staff on zero hours contracts and paying less than the living wage."

Read the CWU submission to Ofcom's annual plan 2014/15. http://www.cwu.org/assets/_files/docume ... Annual.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;