It seems the UK is heading for a postal strike, something contemplated by the majority of citizens with a degree of equanimity. Why? Because for most of us the product Royal Mail are offering is outdated and expensive. Now the company haemorrhaging cash. Our cash.
I remember the Tories having the chance to rid the taxpayer of this burden, but they (in particular Michael Heseltine) chickened out. We shall have paid a high price for his yellow streak by the time it is all over.
But having decided to keep it (there was some nonsense about it being a meeting point for old people) governments took their eye off the ball. In the 1990s, with a buoyant economy and the internet still something new, Royal Mail made a surplus of something like £2.5 billion. This figure, however, masks a number of problems which might have been seen even then, in particular a weak management and short sighted unions. Three things have happened more recently to turn a failed industry into a national disaster:
1 The EU has forced Royal Mail to open up to competition (ie foreign competition) for letters weighing more than 50g (about two ounces).
2 Gordon Brown’s raiding of the pension funds in 1997
3 the coming of the internet
I remember the Tories having the chance to rid the taxpayer of this burden, but they (in particular Michael Heseltine) chickened out. We shall have paid a high price for his yellow streak by the time it is all over.
But having decided to keep it (there was some nonsense about it being a meeting point for old people) governments took their eye off the ball. In the 1990s, with a buoyant economy and the internet still something new, Royal Mail made a surplus of something like £2.5 billion. This figure, however, masks a number of problems which might have been seen even then, in particular a weak management and short sighted unions. Three things have happened more recently to turn a failed industry into a national disaster:
1 The EU has forced Royal Mail to open up to competition (ie foreign competition) for letters weighing more than 50g (about two ounces).
2 Gordon Brown’s raiding of the pension funds in 1997
3 the coming of the internet
Now not everyone can use the internet and it is not ideal for all forms of communication (enclosing a fiver in your letter to your grandson for example) but here is an indication of what should have happened.
Mrs Jones of Cornwall goes into her nearest sub post office with a letter she has written to her sister on the Isle of Skye. She feeds it into the scanner (the employee cannot read it), and gives her sister’s name and address. The letter is then faxed to Skye, arriving within one second, is printed and automatically enclosed in an envelope. Her sister can collect it or for a small extra charge have it delivered (about 2 miles). Quicker, greener, better in every way. The reason we haven’t got this system is the government failed to hand Royal Mail over to the private sector when it could have. A condition would have been providing a universal service and this, utilising simple technology, would have been what the new owners would have come up with.
Now we are left with a lunatic workforce which doesn’t realise it is in an industry on its last legs, and a massive underfunding of the pension commitments (socialists never fix the roof when the sun is shining). This shortfall is said to be some £10 billion, a sum we haven’t got. And they want to go on strike.
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