The Royal Mail needs the reforms that privatisation would bring, says former worker timo long
If you have to wait for your post and presents this Christmas, don't be surprised. Your mail will have travelled to the 1970s and back to reach you.
The Royal Mail is the state-owned industry that survived the great wave of privatisation in the UK. It can probably thank the British affection for the names of the Royal Mail and its division the Post Office for scaring off any government thoughts of selling it.
Yet it is a company crying out for the sort of reform that privatisation has forced on unwilling industries. Powerful unions ensure that its management is barely worthy of the name - incapable of decisive action and virtually unable to fire workers unless they commit a criminal offence.
It would be unfair to simply blame unions for management failings. This is the bunch that abandoned the name of the Post Office (a brand most corporations can only dream of)
The Royal Mail has many hard-working staff. Sadly, they make up only a third of its employees
for the meaningless "Consignia"- only to realise their horrible mistake and switch it back again. All at great expense, of course.
The Royal Mail has many hard-working staff. Sadly, they make up only a third of its employees. Another third would be told by any normal company to shape up or ship out, but instead coast along in comfortable mediocrity. The final third are those who actively abuse their position as unsackable and take every liberty available to them.
This will sound familiar to anyone who has worked in a public company or remembers Britain in the 1970s. The root of the Royal Mail's difficulties is that there is no external pressure forcing it to tackle its problems from either competitors or owners, while its real masters in government avoid decisions that might trigger a nasty strike.
Without privatisation - or, at least, increased competition - "fixing" problems such as the hole in its pension fund will only treat the symptoms - and not the cause - of the postal service's failings.
