Strike takes us back to the future
Posted by Philip Dunne, MP for Ludlow, at 14:48, Tue 27 October 2009:
Last week's national strike by the CWU postal union has already affected millions of letters and packages. More mail misery is planned with three more days of national strike expected from Thursday this week.
The impact affects us all, but is felt particularly harshly in rural areas. With poor access to high speed broadband, a higher proportion of home workers, and no other options for mail delivery, rural residents suffer particularly badly.
Management and the unions have to resolve the strike. But the government cannot shirk responsibility for its inability, as 100% shareholder, to deliver modernisation to Royal Mail during its term of office. This was, after all, a manifesto pledge.
The recent Postal Services Bill offered the chance to solve key structural challenges to Royal Mail. But this Government bottled out of the Bill when Labour backbenchers threatened to rebel. Many will have received funding from the CWU, which has paid £6million into Labour party coffers since 2001. Individual Labour constituency branches have received 363 payments from the CWU in this period. Eight ministers, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer, have personally declared money received from this union.
This strike has provided a stark reminder of the death throes of a previous Labour administration which had lost its authority to control its union paymsters.
I want to see a sustainable postal service with a secure future and clear commitment to the universal service obligation. The best way to achieve this is to follow the independent recommendations of the Hooper report, which formed the essence of the Postal Services Bill. This would enable a sensible injection of private capital and management expertise into Royal Mail. At the same time postal workers would be able to have a direct stake in the success of Royal Mail, which would also reduce their desire to hold us all to ransom through a strike.
Comments
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Posted by Barry Edward Capsey, 15:37, Tue 27 October 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #
It's no surprise that the labour government have failed to truly modernise Royal Mail, although I suspect they probably have thrown vast wedges of badly targetted funds at the task. For a government that clearly and unequivocably promised us a referendum on the Lisbon 'sell-out' it's a given that they can't or won't keep their word, the EU ensured, by threats and pressure, that there would be no referendum. By opening up the profitable parts of Royal Mail, the parcel deliveries etc to all comers, poor old RM is left with the barely viable letters business. Even so, RM's 'Parcelforce' is regularly undercut by most, if not all their competitors. Striking will reduce much of our remaining goodwill, again playing into the hands of voracious European competitors. It was the devious Milliband and Croes who agreed that our Post Offices should receive a much smaller subsidy, which resulted in hundreds of small/rural/lightly used offices being closed. We have such a lot to thank EU for. Even more now, as it seems as our contribution will be going up, yet again, by a FURTHER £5,000,000 PER DAY to £45,000,000 EVERY DAY. Benefits for Great Britain? ZERO, NADA, ZILCH! Sorry Mr. Dunne, but an awfully large number of natural conservatives WILL BE voting UKIP unless there's a cast-iron guarantee of a referendum. Two would be better, one re the Lisbon maze and another for IN OR OUT. Then the UKIP voters, including me, will be back.
Posted by tony phillips, 16:31, Tue 27 October 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #
This strike signifies the death of the monopoly of Royal Mail and rightly so, the ecomomy is in tatters and they vote for a strike which destroy their jobs and future security, voting UKIP is the worst thing anyone could do, their leaders are out for themselves and the party has no real manifesto for the British People. Given that the EU is determined to become a Federal state instead of a trading agreement we have no choice but to stay in and fight from within for better terms. If we do not stay in Europe we will be blocked on trade and free transit across Europe. The British national Party has the best manifesto of any of the parties but is not big enough yet to carry weight, the conservatives are our only hope at this stage and Cameron had better not let us down because our freedoms depend on his judgement, I can promise that if he does let us down there will be civil war in this country because of the sustained attacks that this treacherous 'government' New Labour/Marxists have heaped upon us, enough is enough, no more immigration, no more freebies for freeloading scroungers from the third world, no more free housing and no more of our jobs.
Posted by Barry Edward Capsey, 11:01, Wed 28 October 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #
We buy far more from the EU than they do from us. Vast quantities of British export goods go via Rotterdam and on to the rest of the world, giving the distorted appearance that it's all euro trade, but it isn't. Accordingly we'll always be welcome as mainly 'customers'. Happy Norway and Switzerland are 'outside' the EU and trade as ever with the rest of Europe, as indeed would we. So, we WOULD NOT be blocked on either trade or free transit across europe. All those millions of British tourist euros, not welcome??
UKIP certainly won't be forming the next Britsh government, but they will receive an awful lot of well-placed protest votes UNLESS we're firmly promised a referendum without the current string of weasel caveats from Dave.