Much More Than Just A Post Office

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TERRY PULLINGER tells us why the CWU’s strike action could be the last chance to create a credible strategy for the Post Office’s future

THOUSANDS of Post Office workers will be taking strike action on Thursday September 15 to defend their jobs and pensions and secure the future of the Post Office network.

The Post Office is part of our country’s proud heritage, embedded in the hearts of local communities, visited by 18 million customers a week and providing an important economic and social benefit to UK society.

But a combination of government funding cuts and a deluded, self-congratulating Post Office board threaten the future of this cherished national institution. This is a classic case of the blind leading the blind. Inspiration is now needed or the Great British Post Office will become yet another great institution confined to fond memories.

In this year alone, the Post Office plans to axe up to 2,000 jobs, close the pension scheme — that is in surplus and arguably the best funded in the country — shut down yet more post offices and privatise others, franchising them out to cheaper providers who pay minimum wage and offer workers inferior terms and conditions.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) believes the Post Office has reached crisis point. Management has displayed a complete lack of ambition and pursued a relentless “dash for cash.”

It beggars belief that government and Post Office management present the current situation as one of progress and success — unless one believes that the measure of success is to place your flagship operations into the corner of another company’s premises and replace loyal, highly skilled staff on decent terms and conditions with people on the minimum wage.

What the Post Office needs is immediate government intervention, a moratorium on closures, proper investment and a coherent plan for the future.
The truth is that if you scratch the surface of this myth of progress and success, you will expose a business failing to generate any new revenue, desperately in need of IT infrastructure investment and crying out for new products and services.

Without addressing these issues, you will continue to see closures, further cuts in funding and a relentless programme of structural decline.
The current situation is a combination of bad decisions; the Post Office is not Royal Mail. It was split from Royal Mail to ease the path of privatisation, but remains 100 per cent publicly owned.

At that time, the government promised it would provide investment to turn the Post Office into the “front office” for government services, developing new financial products and services for consumers and businesses alike.

But separation from Royal Mail has proved a commercial failure, both in terms of delivering added investment and growing revenues from new financial services.

Britain stands alone amongst the major developed economies in separating its retail arm from its main postal operations.

No other major postal operator in the world has done that — in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Japan and elsewhere, financial and banking products sold through the post office network have provided a massive injection of revenues to support a declining letters market.

Despite this, the government has consistently rejected the CWU’s call for the creation of a state-backed Post Bank. Without it, the CWU fears the Post Office faces terminal decline. Establishing a bank would create a socially useful, inclusive and dependable banking service for the public and businesses.

With its unrivalled network, trusted brand and national reach, the Post Bank could also address the growing problems of financial exclusion by providing a local and trusted presence in Britain’s high street from which many private banks have already retreated. It could also form the basis for a national infrastructure bank to provide stable, long-term support for key infrastructure investments.

In the light of Post Office management’s abject failure to deliver a credible strategy for growth, the CWU is calling on the government to take responsibility for the industry it owns, call a halt to the latest programme of cuts and closures and convene a summit of all key stakeholders to agree a new settlement that secures the future of the vital Post Office network, the people who work for it and the communities that rely on it.

If the government is serious about tackling social justice and delivering an economy that works for everyone, then it must act now before it’s too late.
Our members are striking on Thursday to protect their jobs and pensions but they’re also striking to defend local communities and secure the future of a “national treasure.”

n Terry Pullinger is deputy general secretary (postal) of the CWU. Sign the People’s Post petition at http://www.supportthepeoplespost.co.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.