Could the postal workers take back Royal Mail?

In our latest thinkpiece Joe Guinan and Thomas M. Hanna outline a proposal that could bring Royal Mail under the control of postal workers. Through the creation of a trust the CWU could begin to collectively and gradually own a larger and larger share of Royal Mail. The trust could be a democratic and transparent entity empowering all workers to shape the future direction of the organisation.

Please comment below (as opposed to the publication page).

2 thoughts on “Could the postal workers take back Royal Mail?

  1. Just wondering, does the present setup provide any scope for management to affect election results by selective suppression of postal votes ?

  2. I would like to articulate a vision of how the Post Office could provide a truly public service. It was under New Labour that much of the vision was lost when it was given “commercial freedom”, which was billed as a way to make it easier to borrow money for investment but which actually turned out to be a jettisoning of their social obligations.

    Nowadays if one is expecting an urgent letter one has to wait in for ages or go home for lunch. I suspect that many people who do the latter, who might normally go to work by public transport or bike, drive to work in order to be able to do the round trip back home in time. That’s 4 extra car trips !

    I therefore suggest that when mail arrives at the sorting office it be distributed among local post offices by van (or in many rural areas passenger carrying postbus). People would be able to call at their local post office en route to work to pick up their mail. Any uncollected mail could then be delivered in the normal way by staff using bikes or on foot.

    This would have the advantage of improving rural public transport (people would board at the village post offices and stay on the vehicle till it got into town, or could get out into the countryside, and they could do it the other way in the afternoon when the postbus was picking up mail from boxes) and helping to underpin the viability of local post offices.

    This would also spell an end to the trek to the sorting office for mail requiring a signature, as this could be given at the local post office. At present Royal Mail do offer such a facility but it costs almost as much as a recorded delivery letter !

    My other grievances against the post office are:

    1. More use of road and air transport in place of rail.
    2. Those ill defined thickness requirements which determine whether one needs a “large letter” stamp.

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