Review of Postal Liberalisation

[AndyK]

Review of Postal Liberalisation

Introduction

CWU members across the Royal Mail group are playing their part in improving efficiency, flexibility and
modernising the company. These are necessary steps in the long term interests of everybody.
However, in isolation, the efforts of the workforce are not enough. The simple truth is Royal Mail’s business
plan cannot succeed within the current regulatory framework or without amendment to the Postal Services
Act of 2000.

Building a successful future for CWU members and the company requires government, Postcomm and
Royal Mail to accept their current approach to competition is completely wrong.

The Government – is committed to open markets which has resulted in the early introduction of
liberalisation in the UK. These political decisions have seen no benefits whatsoever to the public. Rather,
a deteriorating service with higher consumer costs and attacks on postal worker’s terms and conditions,
the complete opposite to their stated ambition within the Manifesto Commitment.

Postcomm – has abandoned their statutory duty to maintain the Universal Service Obligation (USO).
We are now at the point where the USO is not sustainable in the future. Postcomm got its numbers
wrong. They understated the real growth of competition and its impact on Royal Mail’s revenue streams.

Royal Mail – welcomed the early introduction of competition and said it was ready for the challenge.
The reality has been very different. The company have misjudged the situation.
• They freely negotiated the access price when they could have pushed for a judicial review.
• The investment package negotiated with government was premised on inaccurate business assumptions and has fallen woefully short.
• They have shown a complete lack of vision and innovation in the area of new products and services.
Examples of this are the abandonment of tailored services when introducing single daily delivery and
crashing plans to expand logistic solutions, in favour of downsizing.
• They have become hostile to the workforce – preferring to blame CWU members rather than face
up to their own failures and the bigger picture.

We know from the afore-mentioned that winning concessions from this review will not be simple.
However, the government is now aware of the serious imbalances developing in the postal industry and
a further financial crisis for Royal Mail is entirely possible.

Our task is to persuade the review team and thereby the government to intervene and amend the Postal
Services Act of 2000 and subsequent Postcomm decisions.We can achieve this through the presentation
of our evidence and by organising our branches and members as an effective lobby. This will require
clear policy objectives for the review and the development of an alternative solution.

Our solution is a publicly owned Royal Mail – operating in the interests of the public – with clearly defined
social obligations that can operate in a commercial market providing we have a level playing field and the
real cost of maintaining the USO is identified and met by all. Profit should be reinvested to improve service
and high quality terms and conditions for the workforce.

The terms of the Review are:

_ to assess the impact to date of liberalisation of the UK postal service market, including
on the Royal Mail, alternative carriers and consumers;

_ to explore trends in future market development and the likely impact of these on Royal Mail,
alternative carriers and customers; and

_ to consider how to maintain the Universal Service Obligation in light of trends and
market developments identified.

In our response we will also take into account the Government commitments
as set out in its 2005 Manifesto:

‘to the benefit of business and household consumers we are liberalising the postal services market,
while protecting the Universal Service at uniform tariff.

As we said in our policy document ‘Britain is Working’, we have given the Royal Mail greater commercial
freedom and have no plans to privatise it. Our ambition is to see a publicly owned Royal Mail fully
restored to good health, providing customers with an excellent service and its employees with rewarding
employment. We will review the impact (of market liberalisation) on the Royal Mail, which is being
progressively introduced under the Postal Services Act 2000 and which announced alternative carriers
to the Royal Mail to offer postal services.’

[Big Daz]

Im doing my bit, have a resolution on this issue being considered by the local labour party next month.


We need to keep up the pressure at EVERY level.


I shall have to make sure the Green party get stuck in as well.