The Communication Workers Union has taken to the streets to protest against plans to privatise Royal Mail. The Coalition has broken yet another promise: that private capital would only take a minority stake in Royal Mail. Now we face a full-blown sell-off.
Promises to safeguard post offices and the Universal Service Obligation (to deliver equally to every address in Britain) are also worthless. This will gear the postal service towards the needs of business – not the public, who will face stamp price rises, or workers, who will be made redundant or have their hours cut.
Pressure has built up on CWU leaders to act. Local demonstrations and mass meetings against mail centre closures in Stevenage and East London have finally broke the months of inaction at the top. In December an anti-privatisation rally ended with hundreds of postal workers blockading the street outside the Department of Business, chanting the students’ slogan, “Whose streets? Our streets!”
Rank and file postal workers need to organise locally and nationally to build for a national strike to stop cuts and privatisation before it happens.
