Let the postmen ['s pension funds] own Royal Mail

[stephen500]

http://dofonline.co.uk/index.php/the-ed ... ail-445354
"Instead of trying to privatise Royal Mail, why not give the business to the nation’s postmen? Or more specificially, to its current and future pensioners.

The government hopes to raise £3bn from selling shares in the mail business but that is looking increasingly optimistic. Postal services have returned to profit but the pension fund is still showing a huge loss. The fund will be a drain on the business for far into the future – and that will make selling shares in Royal Mail extremely difficult.

Three years ago a plan to pay off the fund’s £10bn deficit over 38 years was criticised by the Pensions Regulator. Rightly: Royal Mail is now warning it must cap pensioners’ benefits.

Last year the fund’s entire £38bn liability was transferred to the government to make privatisation easier, but the problems persist. The £400m a year paid by the postal business to help plug the hole will have to rise to £700m unless pensions are constrained.

So government should consider handing the mail business to the pension fund as a once and for all final settlement of this problem. That way, if the business prospers, so does the pension fund. The future of pensions would be in the hands of the 150,000 staff – a factor they would consider when discussing wage rates, manning and productivity deals.

If the chancellor finds that hard to swallow, then just giving half of Royal Mail to its pension fund while selling the other half to investors would repay part of the national debt. And that half – once the pensions problem is solved - might sell for more than the whole would achieve while staff and company are in conflict over their pensions."

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/communit ... 38&t=53223" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;