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Royal Mail strike – a golden opportunity

The impending strike by Royal Mail workers is a wonderful opportunity to deal with a long standing issue… the essential obsolescence of the whole notion of state mail monopolies.

In this era of highly efficient competing international courier companies, why bother with state letter carriers at all? Do not ‘privatise’ the Royal Mail as was planned earlier, instead make the workers (very generously) redundant… all of them… then sell off the assets to the highest bidder, end the anachronistic monopoly on letter delivery and get the state out of that business completely: simply wind up the Royal Mail.

El Gordo needs to stop seeing this strike as a ‘problem’ and instead see it as a golden opportunity to raise some more money to squander from yet another asset sale whilst allowing modern high tech courier companies like TNT, DHL and UPS to expand into an area they should never have been excluded from in the first place… it is a win-win really.

15 comments to Royal Mail strike – a golden opportunity

  • I don’t think it matters what the government does, in truth. The volume of mail carried by the Royal Mail has collapsed this year (down by nearly a double figure percentage) as businesses realise that not sending letters any more is a good way to cut costs in the recession. As a consequence, management of the Royal Mail has been trying to cut costs and make working practices more efficient.

    In response to the fact that their employer would be on the brink of going bust if it were a normal company, the workers go on strike, thus hastening the process.

    One way or another the Royal Mail as we know it will be gone within I think a couple of years, as its fundamental letter carrying business is simply ceasing to exist.

    Carrying of parcels is a different business from carrying letters and is not in decline, and it may be that this business can be separated from the letter business and preserved (this has been done once already with Parcelforce) but who cares? This only justifies a small portion of the Royal Mail’s existence and there is lots of competition there already.

  • Verity

    I don’t know why Perry didn’t refer to FedEx, the first, and best, courier company on Planet Earth. Started by a Viet Nam vet who, on coming home, thankfully alive, saw the woefully inadequate, poor service US Postal Service and thought he could start up his own company and better it.

    Not only is the rest history, but while I was living in the US, secretaries in office towers were calling Federal Express to deliver critical items to other floors, rather than mail them, because they were confident of prompt deliveries that would be signed for. And FedEx was the first to challenge the postal services. Give them some credit.!

  • There will be a lot of public opposition to the elimination of the “Royal Mail” as it is perceived. This is because the mass of the British People addhere to “The wrong type of Conservatism”….

    In may places round here, the sight each day (most days even now) of your “postie” (and he’s yours!) in a sort of faux-post-modern-military getup, reminds you who you are. (Not me – I don’t need reminding, but then I don’t view the Wireless Tele Vision or read sleb-mags.) The RM is strangely viewed through somewhat of the same prism as the NHS. Any attempts to terminate all or part of it and hive off the least awful parts of it to “foreign” “asset-strippers” will be met with outrage in places likethe Daily Mail. Furthermore, if anyone among the “public” got the slightest suspicion that Deutsche-Post was involved at all (it already is but they don’t know that) there’d be hell to pay, specially in both extreme-rural Tory seats and extreme-urban Labour Rotten Boroughs.

    Gordon Brown won’t even begin to open this can of worms: he does not see it as an opportunity for streamlining State functions and minimising them, but for leaving a smoking grenade for the Tories to pick up next year, ass uming his henchdroids can’t rig the election to ensure a Labour win.

  • Brian, follower of Deornoth

    While selling the Post Office would provide the Government with enough money for a few hours more public spending, keeping it nationalised will mean the Post Office Unions will provide the Labour party with a few hours more Party Funding.

    It’ll be interesting to see which consideration triumphs, won’t it?

  • pete

    Why ‘very generous’ redundancy terms for the Royal Mail staff? The state sets both a minimum wage and minimum redundancy pay. Several large councils, including Glasgow, have decided that the minimum wage is too low for their own staff, however unskilled, and government concerns like the civil service are notorious for large redundancy payouts in comparison to the private sector.

    And we all know that the government feels that all its staff need superb pensions, better than average holiday entitlements and in mnay cases higher than market rates of pay.

    The government should not be generous with our money.

  • Why ‘very generous’ redundancy terms for the Royal Mail staff? The state sets both a minimum wage and minimum redundancy pay.

    …which, to state the obvious, are invariably ‘very generous’ for public sector redundancy.

  • Verity, FedEx was not the first, UPS beat it by some 40 years or so.

  • Verity

    Alisa – UPS, in its cleverly designed shit coloured uniforms and trucks never did seem to strike a light in the public mind. I am still trying to understand why.

    FedEx came up with a snappy name and snappy colours, it performed, and it shone, and it still shines.

    The German postal company DHL, despite its drab livery, featuring the colour yellow for some reason, does employ smart people who want to do their jobs, and I have never had a complaint when they’ve made a pick-up or delivery. Given traffic conditions, they’re basically always on time.

    But FedEx is crisp and snappy and I think they were the first to dress their couriers (men and women) in knee-length shorts in the summer, which was very cute at the time. Then the US Postal Service copied them, but they have a fatter level of employee, being on the public tit and all.

    When you are going to call a courier service, there’s not much to ponder between “Do I want a dull grey uniform and rather pudgy people wearing shorts, or do I want slender, lively people wearing shorts but with a cuter uniform?”

    Sorry, Alisa, but appearances are half the battle.

    FedEx powered in as snappy, efficient and helpful.

    I may be wrong, but I believe they introduced free tracking for customers on the internet. And computerised signing to acknowledge delivery.

  • Laird

    For what it’s worth, Verity, I always use UPS for my overnight shipping (letters as well as packages) because they’re every bit as effecient as FedEx and they’re quite a bit cheaper. And our UPS man is a very nice fellow (even if his uniform and truck are a bit on the drab side).

  • Verity

    Laird, I believe in a world of free competition, and if UPS has pleased you and earned your loyalty, that is to their credit.

  • From my experience, at least in the US Fedex is mostly used for documents, while UPS for three-dimensional packages. USPS is still used when one really doesn’t mind waiting. And yes, Fedex is more expensive on the whole. In any case, my comment was not about who is better (or better looking), but who was first.

    To get back OT, I still remember the fuss every time the USPS raised the price of a letter stamp, as if anyone really had to use them. To be fair, that was in the 90s when not everyone had e-mail yet. I wonder how much is the stamp now, and if anyone even cares anymore.

  • Laird

    Alisa, 1st Class postage in the US is currently 44¢ for the first ounce (17¢ for additional ounces, up to four). They increased is a few months ago, and lately seem to be increasing it pretty much every year. And you’re right: no one seems to much care any more.

  • Heh, it was 32¢ last I remember. Oh well. Maybe the USPS can add some extra value by having its employees wear even shorter shorts in the summer, although from what I remember of them that might rather defeat the purpose…

  • Paul Marks

    Alisa – UPS boycotted Glenn Beck (over his observation that Barack Obama attended a racist church for over 20 years – so there is at least as much evidence to call him a racist as there is to throw the charge at most people the charge is thrown at), at least the left boasted that UPS gave in to their demands to no longer advertise on the Glenn Beck show.

    To political people that put UPS in our bad book – and (I admit) I am at least as much as political person as Verity is. If someone crosses me politically I take it personally. “So you do X to avoid offending the left – O.K. but that means you have now offended me”.

    For example, I would not send something by UPS now (if I had the choice I would sent it by FedEx). Silly perhaps, but there we are.

    As for the “Royal Mail” (which, of course, the Queen dos NOT own and has no control of whatever), it is toast.

    Even the “mainstream” media de facto accept what Perry has written – much though they grind their teeth over it.

  • H Zammit

    The strike is unfair on the customers as it is abusing them in two ways. They still collect postage payment when they do not intend to give a good service and secondly they are using customers’ exasperation and gruntling to achieve what they want. THis strike is effecting other sectors and businesses who may now start thinking of using alternatives.