Royal Mail is set to be floated in a few weeks’ time, with the Coalition Government looking to sell at least 40.1% on the market and give 10% of shares to employees. Unsurprisingly, the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents most Royal Mail staff, is as unconvinced as the rest of us by assurances that universal service, daily deliveries and low postage rates will continue after privatisation. Harsh job cuts in Royal Mail will undoubtedly follow the sell-off, and so the CWU will ballot to strike on 3rd October.
This will be the final protest, the last line, the only remaining defence against the destruction of one of the few public services that work. At present, it’s possible to send a letter to anywhere in the country, in a little over 12 hours, for about the price of a chocolate bar. Is Royal Mail seriously going to maintain a reliable or affordable postal service to the Outer Hebrides or the Welsh valleys when they are so unprofitable?
The Coalition says that daily delivery and universal service is guaranteed by law, but we know that the law can change. It’s like with tuition fees: we were told that ‘top-up fees’ would never lead to students paying for most of their university education, and within five years fees were raised to £9,000 a year. Similarly, as the commercial Royal Mail watches TNT and UKMail undermine its lucrative mailsorting division and personal letter volumes decline yet further, it will furiously lobby a future government to loosen its legal commitments.
The fact is, Royal Mail is one of the best examples of the necessity of collective ownership: only with its owners being democratically accountable has it sustained its wonderful public service ethic that pursues service provision rather than profit. The second the first share hits the market, that ethic is gone, with grim consequences for Royal Mail workers.
But, having doommongered, I think we need a constructive plan for the possibilty that the CWU strike fails to prevent privatisation. And so hear me out as I think aloud:
The Labour Party, though hostile to the privatisation, is unlikely to reverse it when in Office, at least not on the strength of public pressure alone. However, this doesn’t render other forms of collective ownership impossible. It is our belief in the value of co-operation that we should harness. Therefore, I propose the formation of a co-operative whose rule is to build a large shareholding in Royal Mail, and use it to maintain the standards of the old nationalised service. It would seek the proxy votes of other shareholders, such as the workers, and use crowdfunding methods to buy Royal Mail one percent at a time. When the time is right, it can sell its shareholding to the State or a mutual such as the Co-operative Group, or raise finance, for a full takeover.
It’s certainly ambitious, but I think with an aggressive publicity campaign, political and union support, and the right people to run the co-operative, we could build up a shareholding that’s more than sufficient to influence the Royal Mail board.
Tell me what you think of the idea. If the response is positive enough, I’ll look more comprehensively into how this could be turned into reality.