George MacDonald, postal worker and co-chair of the Highlands and Islands region of Solidarity examines the latest threat to a long standing public service from New Labour’s obsession with privatisation

While no decision has yet been reached on the proposed privatisation of Royal Mail, no doubt remains in my mind that Gordon Brown along with Mandelson and other New Labour Tories are hell bent on seeing this plan come to fruition, either before or after the next general election.  If the Tory Tories are returned to power they too will want to see this public sector asset sold off to their profit hungry city chums.

The evidence to me seems clear.  Let’s take a step back in time.

In 1984 I was employed by British Telecom at the time of its privatisation program. Prior to privatisation saw the promulgation of a state sponsored hate campaign against BT and the ‘horrors’ of public ownership.  The Thatcher Government, with the co-operation of the BBC and the right wing press combined to destroy the reputation of the company to such an extent that cartoon BT bird ‘Busby’ was voted the most unpopular individual in Britain.  No mention was made, of course, of BT’s year on year profits £500 million, or of its role as a leading player in the world telecommunications industry.

Both before and after privatisation we saw a massive onslaught on workers’ pay and conditions, culminating in a three week national strike in 1989 – which didn’t succeed because Thatcher had 30,000 French telecommunications workers lined up to cross the channel and keep the system going.

The net effect of this and other privatisations was a huge erosion in the pay and conditions of public sector workers and a bad deal for customers of the now privatised companies, plus tens of thousands of skilled job losses which continue until the present day.  Far from making industry ‘leaner and fitter’ and opening up ‘inefficient’ public sector companies to ‘ the fresh winds of competition’, the Tories sold off profit making high tech public sector industries to their friends in the city at a knockdown price.  Ever since a steady stream of profit that could have come back to the public purse has lined the pockets of the fat cats instead.

What then, is happening today with the Royal Mail? Firstly, we had the appointment of Allan Leighton (a failed executive who presided over the financial disasters at both Safeway and Leeds United FC) as Royal Mail chairman, followed shortly thereafter by Adam Crozier as his right hand man.  That these were politically inspired appointments to soften up Royal Mail for privatisation is in no doubt.  Within a matter of months of their appointment they began to wage class warfare against the Royal Mail workforce.  Industrial relations and staff morale hit rock bottom, leading to the year-on-year practice of imposed pay deals with their concomitant erosions of terms and conditions of employment.  Leighton and Crozier’s New Labour inspired agenda had been consistent and simple – more work for less money, shed jobs, make Royal Mail more ‘competitive’, and therefore more attractive to would be privateers.

At the same time Brown’s cronies in the right wing press were chipping in with a series of articles demanding ‘modernisation’ – of a public institution that has been a world leader in service delivery for decades!

Meanwhile, there were increased efforts to fight back using industrial action, culminating in the strike action of 2008, which saw a partial victory, but probably could have dealt Leighton and Crozier a fatal blow had the CWU leadership been prepared to take the industrial action into December and threaten the complete disruption of the Xmas mail period.  The failure to take such action I can only put down to pressure from above – i.e. New Labour.  Once again the ‘Labour Link’ has acted to prevent trade unionists from effectively defending their own interests and the longer term interests of the wider public.  How can the socialist movement solve the problem of a largely politically pro-Labour TU leadership acting in collusion with a morally and politically bankrupt right wing Labour government until the ‘Labour Link’ is broken?

Meanwhile, back at Royal Mail, the aforementioned Leighton and Crozier have been pushing their privatisation project on, deeper and deeper into the workplace.

For example

• In workplace briefing sessions where the workforce is told they are going to receive ‘phantom shares’ – i.e. shares in Royal Mail, which in the event of privatisation will be transformed from worthless pieces of paper into valuable stock. I made a point of tearing mine up and throwing them in a bucket – to the amazement of some of my colleagues. Even after I explain to them that it is illegal to issue shares in a nationalised company, they remain convinced that I’m crazy.)
• Through the installation of high tech TV screens in workplace canteens.  Gey futuristic, you might think, but these screens don’t screen Setanta or news programmes.  They’re hooked up to the Central Scrutiniser and relay 24/7 propaganda messages from corporate HQ
• Workplace notice boards that are a constant source of misinformation about the ‘poor’ performance of Royal Mail, compared to the ‘improved’ performance of its competitors, along with the growing disenchantment of RM’s ‘customers’.  All bullshit, of course, but hardly surprising given that the government has starved Royal Mail of funds, refused to countenance a realistic increase in the cost of postage and given an absolute advantage to private companies like TNT by allowing them to use Royal Mail facilities for private deliveries on the cheap
• And, surprise, surprise, the recently published, government inspired Hooper report – supposedly ‘independent’ – managed to concur entirely with Leighton and Crozier that Royal Mail should be 49% privatised as a first step towards full privatisation.

All of this leads me to believe that an attempted privatisation is on its way, sooner or later, and that it will need to be seriously fought by a joint campaign of the trade unions and the public.

And what of my union – the CWU?

This is the union that insisted on a clause in the 2005 Labour manifesto that Royal Mail would not be privatised. Yet the last edition of our monthly newspaper was full of dim-witted rubbish about standing firm behind the Labour Party in these tough times - just in case we ended up with a Tory government.

Eh?

The suspicion must be that a union leadership still tied to Labour bureaucratically, financially and organisationally will do a deal and claim that a 51% stake in Royal Mail allows Labour to technically keep its manifesto promise.

The threat of privatisation of Royal Mail poses a challenge to the socialist movement. At a time when the so called ‘free’ market and private profit have never been so discredited it is a moment to draw a line in the sand and say no more to the blatant robbery of public assets by the private sector.

In the event that a privatisation bill does come before the Westminster parliament, it gives us a chance to run public campaigns in the workplace and on the streets exposing privatisation for the rip-off that it is and positively promoting the values of public services and public ownership, communicating with concerned trade unionists and members of the public.

And it gives us in Solidarity an opportunity – especially in the unfortunate event that the Tories are put back into power at Westminster - to weave into our argument our stance on independence. Because in an independent Scotland, Scottish Mail would – in all probability - remain in public, not private, hands.