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[fantomena]

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he wants to see a publicly-run Royal Mail as he joined postal workers on one of the busiest days of the year for the service.

He spoke to members of the Communication Workers Union in central London, pledging support for its campaign to preserve the universal service of deliveries to 29 million homes and businesses.

The union fears there will be an attack on Royal Mail workers' terms and conditions under a review next year by the industry's regulator.

Mr Corbyn told workers gathered in the car park of the huge Mount Pleasant site that he will organise an Opposition Day debate in the Commons next year to support the CWU campaign.

"I want to see a publicly-run Royal Mail, with protection for workers and the service," he said. "Labour will be doing our very best to support and protect your conditions."

Mr Corbyn called on Conservative MPs to support the campaign, warning that services to rural areas would be among those under threat by any changes such as increased competition, with other companies taking over the so-called "final mile" deliveries to houses.

The CWU designated today National Postal Workers Day as part of its People's Post campaign.

General secretary Dave Ward said: "National Postal Workers Day - traditionally the busiest posting day of the year - is your chance to give posties across the UK the recognition they deserve.

"The CWU is campaigning hard to protect the terms and conditions of our members at the same time as preserving the service that we provide to the public and businesses.
"Royal Mail may have been sold off on the cheap, but the service is and always will be the people's post."

It is not the first time that Mr Corbyn has backed the People's Post campaign.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...Mail-and-Tory-MPs-are-welcome-to-back-me.html

 

[OverBlood 3]

Then one day the tories can sell it off to their mates again.


We need publicly run transport too because train travel is a rip off and it's slow and shoddy on top of that.

 

[Jezbollah]

Then one day the tories can sell it off to their mates again.


We need publicly run transport too because train travel is a rip off and it's slow and shoddy on top of that.

The ownership of the Royal Mail being public or private is no golden bullet in treating its core issues. I know a few people who have worked there for years (one for over 20) and they say there is a rotten culture throughout the organisation - and has been like that for years. In his own words "there's nothing Royal about the Royal Mail"...

Wanting a publically owned Royal Mail with "protection" for it's workers is one thing - actually looking into the culture of the business and fixing it is another.

 

[QuicheFontaine]

Then one day the tories can sell it off to their mates again.

We need publicly run transport too because train travel is a rip off and it's slow and shoddy on top of that.

Eh? I thought Labour privatised the Royal Mail. Remember 'Consignia'?

 

[phisheep]

Eh? I thought Labour privatised the Royal Mail. Remember 'Consignia'?

That was a plc, but wholly owned by the Government. Wasn't privatised at all until 2011.

 

[QuicheFontaine]

That was a plc, but wholly owned by the Government. Wasn't privatised at all until 2011.

Ah right.

I'm just glad they dropped that awful name. Ugh.

 

[TedMilk]

Corbyn strikes again! What a guy.

/ns

 

[Kurtofan]

history's greatest monster strikes again

 

[QuicheFontaine]

history's greatest monster strikes again

He probably wants to rebrand it as Unroyal Mail cos he hates the Queen lol

 

[The Berg]

What George Osborne did with underselling the Royal Mail shares to private companies was downright criminal. We lost around a billion pounds of public money.

 

[War Peaceman]

What George Osborne did with underselling the Royal Mail shares to private companies was downright criminal. We lost around a billion pounds of public money.

That was one of the most blatant bits of cronyism I've seen in some time. Disgraceful, even if you don't think the Royal Mail should be state-owned.

 

[MrChom]

What George Osborne did with underselling the Royal Mail shares to private companies was downright criminal. We lost around a billion pounds of public money.

Apparently some businessmen said to Vince Cable they'd be really good and not sell for a huge profit on the initial stakes in short order.

He assumed a gentlemen's agreement was fine.

They lied.

Another case of the British Government selling off the silverware while the house burns down around them....

 

[cyberheater]

Royal Mail has been tragically underfunded for decades. It's time to make this a public company again and return the profits back to the company.

Apparently some businessmen said to Vince Cable they'd be really good and not sell for a huge profit on the initial stakes in short order.

Vince Cable is a arse hat and has shat on Royal Mail for years.

 

[Zaph]

The ownership of the Royal Mail being public or private is no golden bullet in treating its core issues. I know a few people who have worked there for years (one for over 20) and they say there is a rotten culture throughout the organisation - and has been like that for years. In his own words "there's nothing Royal about the Royal Mail"...

Wanting a publically owned Royal Mail with "protection" for it's workers is one thing - actually looking into the culture of the business and fixing it is another.

I can easily believe that. My local Royal Mail delivery office is full of people who've obviously lost their way or are just generally very shady. The supervisor (who's worked there his entire life) buys and sells exotic cars from the delivery area.

A company has to be in a pretty big state of disarray for someone to have no problem blatantly moonlighting on the premises. That's a company culture that can't be fixed overnight (if at all).

 

[Dingens]

[...]
We need publicly run transport too because train travel is a rip off and it's slow and shoddy on top of that.

b-b-b-b-but the rest of Europe depends on private UK railway companies to back up our arguments. Because that way we can point to how shitty private rail is every time our government thinks about privatizing ours too.

Spoiler

I feel you

aside from the workers standpoint, was there anything else that got worse after mail privatization?

 

[Heigic]

Seems like a giant waste of billions.

 

[toythatkills]

Ridiculous. The royals already do basically nothing and now we're going to stop the Queen and her family from sorting the mail? What exactly are we paying them for???

 

[Spaghetti]

interesting bit of play by reaching out to conservative MPs from rural communities.

i think labour HQ has finally realised one of corbyn's great strengths is that he can give the impression of being very collected in a sea of press attacks and soundbite-led fearmongering from the prime minister, and sort of cut through the bullshit sufficiently enough to be heard in a more meaningful way.

holding out an olive branch is a good PR move, because corbyn certainly won't look bad even if it gets slapped out his hands by the tories.

 

[MLH]

As a now private company Royal Mail is in serious risk of collapse. I've seen this coming from the very start.
By law Royal Mail must provide a single rate for delivery anywhere in the UK; sending a letter to the next city? that'll be 55p, to the Shetland? That'll be 55p. Their collections are incredibly local, you can find a RM post box in the middle of nowhere and it will be collected and delivered as quick as anywhere else in the country - a uniform postage system. No other postage firm can offer that. But such a system comes at a cost; countryside collections and deliveries are loss making for Royal Mail. Whereas other private postage firms such as whistl have come in and cherry picked business off Royal Mail, localised to the cities (the profit making areas). Unlike Royal Mail, whistl are not required by law to deliver everywhere for uniform price. So that leaves the government with three options:
1) Leave things as they are and let RM collapse.
2) Make everyone conform to the uniform postage system (Lobbyist wont allow this and the Tories wont do this)
or 3) Scrap the uniform postage system leaving our country with a tiered postal system; live in the countryside and need a letter quick, tough shit! Postage collection is now once every 5 days and costs 3 times as much as in the city!

I agree with Corbyn, Royal Mail must be in public hands, our entire postal system will suffer without it.

 

[Jezbollah]

As a now private company Royal Mail is in serious risk of collapse. I've seen this coming from the very start.
By law Royal Mail must provide a single rate for delivery anywhere in the UK; sending a letter to the next city? that'll be 55p, to the Shetland? That'll be 55p. Their collections are incredibly local, you can find a RM post box in the middle of nowhere and it will be collected and delivered as quick as anywhere else in the country - a uniform postage system. No other postage firm can offer that. But such a system comes at a cost; countryside collections and deliveries are loss making for Royal Mail. Whereas other private postage firms such as whistl have come in and cherry picked business off Royal Mail, localised to the cities (the profit making areas). Unlike Royal Mail, whistl are not required by law to deliver everywhere for uniform price. So that leaves the government with three options:
1) Leave things as they are and let RM collapse.
2) Make everyone conform to the uniform postage system (Lobbyist wont allow this and the Tories wont do this)
or 3) Scrap the uniform postage system leaving our country with a tiered postal system; live in the countryside and need a letter quick, tough shit! Postage collection is now once every 5 days and costs 3 times as much as in the city!

I agree with Corbyn, Royal Mail must be in public hands, our entire postal system will suffer without it.

How much of the above was an issue when RM was in public hands? I'm pretty sure the price of first class mail has always remained uni-formally the same regardless of location..

 

[MLH]

How much of the above was an issue when RM was in public hands? I'm pretty sure the price of first class mail has always remained uni-formally the same regardless of location..

The uniform postage has been around for hundreds of years, loss making in rural areas and profiting in the cities. It's when the government allowed private firms to operate in January 2006, loosening RMs monopoly, that we saw private businesses cherry picking delivery routes localised only to the cities, leading to the problem we now have.

Edit: I've just read that changes made in 2011 meant that Royal Mail will only be obligated to provide a universal system until 2021. That didn't last long!

 

[Nevasleep]

Royal Mail is still important, and provide a very local service compared to other courier companies....and by visiting most homes in the UK 6 days a week, they literally save lives(strokes, falls, accidents, fires) and provide some contact for elderly.
I'm slightly bias as I used to work for them a couple years ago, best company I've worked for.

Also I don't think any company actually delivers letters themselves now, they just use downstream access at Mail Centres, and Royal Mail have to deliver it.
I thought Royal Mail were making profits, and the problem was pensions.

 

[Jackpot]

What George Osborne did with underselling the Royal Mail shares to private companies was downright criminal. We lost around a billion pounds of public money.

Vince Cable deserves equal blame at least, and I was a Lib Dem at the time.

 

[Any Questions]

That was one of the most blatant bits of cronyism I've seen in some time. Disgraceful, even if you don't think the Royal Mail should be state-owned.

If I recall a certain Mr Vince Cable was responsible for the sell off.

 

[King_Moc]

What George Osborne did with underselling the Royal Mail shares to private companies was downright criminal. We lost around a billion pounds of public money.

Yeah, but he sings 'God Save the Queen' though, so he's obviously in the right.

 

[IdreamofHIME]

The share holders will be happy. Bought them for pennies and sell back for pounds.
Never gonna happen though, not until the while postal system is on its knees like the East Coast rail service was and the Government couldn't wait to sell that off again once it was making profit.

 

[funkypie]

If anything needs to be nationalised it is the joke we call the energy sector. Bills always going up, especially winter because "the wholesale price has" yet these companies are making billions...

 

[pulsemyne]

The ownership of the Royal Mail being public or private is no golden bullet in treating its core issues. I know a few people who have worked there for years (one for over 20) and they say there is a rotten culture throughout the organisation - and has been like that for years. In his own words "there's nothing Royal about the Royal Mail"...

Wanting a publically owned Royal Mail with "protection" for it's workers is one thing - actually looking into the culture of the business and fixing it is another.

What that business that makes hundred of millions of pounds of profit for the taxpayer? They must be doing something right.
Makes you wonder why the Tories are itching to sell it off....oh wait no it doesn't.

 

[CyclopsRock]

Wasnt the market opened up to competition due to EU laws requiring it be opened up?

 

[MLH]

Wasnt the market opened up to competition due to EU laws requiring it be opened up?

Yes

Here is some interesting research on the Deregulation and Privatisation of Postal Services in Europe [Global Research]

Point [1]

EU regulation imposed a stepwise opening of markets. From 1998 onwards, the post monopoly was reduced to items weighing 350 grams and less, from 2003 onwards to items weighing 100 grams and less, and from 2006 onward to items weighing 50 grams or less. Since 2011 and for eleven countries since 2013, postal markets are fully liberalized. EU regulation does not concern public ownership. Member states are free to maintain publicly owned postal operators.

The research suggests that privatisation generally leads to declining services and higher prices. The author also says that privatised services “typically deliver only two or three days a week and only in highly populated areas.” But at the same time, standard mail costs have increased.

It's worth a read. Despite my support for unity in Europe, I believe that forcing market competition in publicly owned postal systems has done more harm than good.

 

[BertramCooper]

Wow, I actually had no idea the UK mail system was privatized.

I knew Germany's was, but not the UK's.