Royal Fail, Royal Mail theft

Something many of us knew before hand anyway the but it is confirmed the Royal Mail was sold off on the cheap by the Tories. The privatisation of Royal Mail did not achieve the best value for taxpayers because of the government's "deep caution", the spending watchdog says. The National Audit Office said too much emphasis was put on completing the sale within this Parliament, at the expense of achieving better value for money. Royal Mail shares are now more than 70% higher than the original sale price of 330p in October 2013. The privatisation of Royal Mail took place amid huge public interest and the shares rose by 38% to 455p on their first day of trading, representing an increase in value of £750m for the new shareholders. The NAO report concluded that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills was too cautious when setting the sale price of 330p per share. "The department was very keen to achieve its objective of selling Royal Mail, and was successful in getting the company listed on the FTSE 100," said Amyas Morse, head of the NAO. L Achieving the highest price possible at any cost and whatever the risk was never the aim of the sale” End Quote Vince Cable Business Secretary "Its approach, however, was marked by deep caution, the price of which was borne by the taxpayer." A planned postal workers' strike, which was eventually cancelled after the privatisation, also affected the government's sale price. Demand for Royal Mail shares was 24 times the maximum number available to investors, the NAO said, but the banks overseeing the sale advised there was not sufficient demand to justify a significantly higher figure. George Godber, a fund manager at Milton Group, told Radio 4 that he was "astounded" by the low price. "I thought it was significantly underpriced. In stock market terms, this was the London 2012 Olympic ticket moment, lots of people applied but very few got to go to the opening ceremony." Managers from two of these advising banks - Goldman Sachs and UBS - said market uncertainty and the complexity of the deal led them to a conservative price when they were questioned by MPs in November last year. As we seen last week the Royal Mail is already cost cutting looking to slash its workforce by 1600 predictably the CWU union makes a lot of noise but will anything be done about this? I doubt it much like the proposed strike back over privatisation which was more hot air from the likes of Billy Hayes and Dave Ward who would rather wait for a labour government. Labour have predictably come out saying the tax payer has been sold a short one and that Royal Mail was under sold but this miss's the glaring point that it shouldn’t have been sold off in the first place. Instead of ranting about how cheaply it was sold off how about making the case for renationalization and returning the organisation to public hands and running it for people’s needs not a few peoples profits.

The sad demise of the Royal Mail

So next week those who have brought shares and you have to have brought 750 pounds worth of them at least ill float on the stock exchange. This sees the end of an era for publically owned mail services. No longer will the Royal Mail be publically owned but owned and accountable only to its shareholders. The Royal Mail has delivered post and parcels for a long time now and as with a lot of things people wont realize what they had until it is gone much like the NHS which is to be privatized soon too with devastating effects. This is a disgrace and should never have been allowed to happen but it has. The last labour government tried before with peter Mandelson facing opposition yet this time it seems like it’s gone though straight away with nothing but a peep out of the unions. As for the Trade Unions whatever happened to those ballots over privatization all gone a bit quiet hasn’t it? The CWU the communication workers union who is headed up by labour fanatic Billy Hayes have lead numerous sell outs over the years including the one most recently in 2009 where a defeat for the workers was sold as a victory shamefully despite workers being willing to take further action. The CWU has form when it comes to diffusing members’ anger and selling disputes short. As with all unions, there will inevitably come a point when what counts as a victory for the officials will clash with the interests of the workers, and as long as the bureaucrats maintain control of the dispute they will get their way. So how can we fight privatisation if the likes of the CWU are n not willing to fightback as I hope won’t be the case of course. "Privatisation should be fought as it is always pushed as a way to benefit shareholders and private profit over workers and service users. But, as civil servants and public sector workers will be all too aware right now, a boss is a boss is a boss. Our struggles may force nationalisation, and this may be a short or long term benefit depending on the terms, but we don’t need this as a demand for it to be the outcome. “Public” ownership is no automatic panacea and it is no substitute for genuine workers’ self-management. That being said, how do we fight against privatisation? Strikes and other industrial action by the workers affected are obviously one of the best forms of action, but this doesn’t mean that lacking a unionised workforce – or with a union unwilling to fight – then the sell off is inevitable. Likewise, alongside solidarity on the picket lines, the wider class can utilise direct action as part of the fight. There are a number of forms this could take. The "I won't pay" movement in Greece is one example that can be deployed when what’s at stake is a service where fees are being introduced, or significantly hiked, as a result of private sector involvement. This can also galvanise an awful lot of people given how extra costs can impact particularly on those already struggling to make their income meet their outgoings. Another potential form of direct action is the kind of pickets that the anti-workfare campaign has used to force providers out of the government’s work for benefits schemes. After all, a sell off requires a buyer, and if we can find out who is bidding for the contract then a hit on their profits and customers turning away can potentially persuade them to pull out of the deal. There are also occupations and economic blockades. As with the threat of a service being shut down altogether, users taking it over in opposition can be a powerful show of defiance and cause the kind of disruption that can make the whole process too much of a headache. Likewise, since the person doing the selling is the government, hitting the economy as a whole by blocking roads (or bridges) can have a similar disruptive impact. None of these actions are on their own going to stop privatisation. Nor are they all going to be equally useful in every circumstance. But they should be seen as a starting point that we can build on and utilise where possible. When privatisation is threatened, whether the detrimental effect is purely for the workers facing it or for broader sections of the working class, we should fight it. But all the petitions in the world won’t force the state and the bosses to change their mind. They can safely ignore us too if all we do is March from point A to point B and listen to speeches. Don’t petition – organise! " With quotes and extracts from http://libcom.org/blog/how-do-we-fight-privatisation-20092013

A sad day for the british post office as its set to be sold off

So we hear tonight that the government of this country has voted in favour of selling off and privitising the Royal Mail. Story courtesy of teh bbc here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12177668

This is such a sad day for many of the post office's workers and a sad day for this country as a whole. One of our great institutions going off to the gready capitalists out there. Lets not forget it was a labour government which tried time after time to try and do exactly this during itst ime in government. We willa ll remember the consignia mess that Adam Crozier and his cronies were involved in.

THis move to sell off the post office comes as no real surprise to me knowing what kind of government we now have. A very right wing idealogically driven government set in their ways to carry out waht Margret Tatcher failed to finnish off. THe public sector.

I feel sorry for all the hard workers of the post office who will no doubt be loosing their jobs now when it is taken over by a private firm. As the private firm will look to slash job numbers, restructure, possibly re-finance it and make it "more efficient".

Campaigns such as keep the post public fought really harda nd still will have their say i'm sure of this and hopefully a backlash will arrise but this is sad news i feel for one of britains best known high street outlets.


A month or so ago i attended a stevenage against the cuts rally where Billy hayes of the CWU spoke to us. you can find this post here :


http://markwrightuk88.blogspot.com/2010/12/billy-hayes-of-cwu-speech-to-stevenage.html

Billy who still believes in the labour party turning themselves around stated that his union had fought off attempts to close post offices across the country and had battled with the last labour government to fend off this very same event we hear of tonight. I would love to hear billys views tonight on what has just been voted through in parliament.

Billy hayes of CWU speech to stevenage TUC anti cuts meeting

I have been finding out more and moer about the speakers who spoke tonight at the meeting in Stevenage against the cuts. This was Billy Hayes's speech he delivered tonight. Here it is in full if anyone would like to read it

I want to start by congratulating Stevenage and District TUC on tonight’s event. We are in the early days of the cuts programme that the Coalition Government intend to introduce.

So it is important to form a really broad based opposition. Tonight’s event is obviously going to contribute to building the fight back from the community in Stevenage and Hertfordshire.

At the moment the Government appears to be strong. It is certainly receiving a very easy ride from the media – Murdoch and his friends are using their influence to ensure that the working class accepts that its living standard must go down.

But I think we are beginning to see the start of real opposition. The demonstration of the students, and the school students, have been an inspiration to the Trade Union Movement.

Clearly, the Coalition Government’s programme is going to have an impact on many people outside of the Labour Movement.

It is then very important that we aim to build broad based alliances against the cuts. The Trade Union Labour Movement cannot do this on its own.

We have to win support in a wider community.

In some ways there is plenty of ground for this. –

The Coalition Government cuts will be most felt by the 90% of the population whose earnings are less than £45,000 a year. This is a big majority of the population.

But power resides alongside wealth.

And so the Coalition Government is hoping that the cuts in living standards will be accepted because the majority feel they have no chance to stand up to the cuts.

It is to the students, and school students, that the honour falls of showing that there is a powerful opposition.

But we also have to show that there is an alternative policy.

Our argument needs to be that we need investment in our economy to grow out of recession. Cuts deepen the problem – making a renewed recession more, not less, likely.

The real reason there has been a recession is because private sector investment collapsed.

In the UK, 56% of the fall in GDP was a fall in fixed investment.

So with less investment, there is a rise in unemployment amongst workers. With less investment there is less tax paid to the Treasury.

With the rise in unemployment there is a rise in welfare spending. With a fall in revenue to the Treasury, and with an increase in Government spending, there is a gap in public finances – the famous deficit.

But the deficit is a result of the collapse in private investment – the rise in unemployment, and the increase in welfare spending.

We have to address the root cause – which is the collapse of investment. –

So we say “investment not cuts” is the alternative.

If the economy grows, more workers are employed, tax revenues to the Treasure increase, and the deficit comes down and disappears as a natural process.

Now, if you take the policy of the Coalition Government, you make cuts not investment.

The result of this we can see in the return of the Irish economy to recession.

Until very recently, George Osborne had been lauding the Irish experience as the route that it is necessary to follow in Britain.

He said that we should learn lessons in the manner in which the Irish Government was carrying through its economic policy. Suddenly he has gone quiet on this.

It is a national catastrophe for Ireland, that the Irish Government has allowed itself to be bullied into accepting the IMF dictates on their economy.

The so called “helping hand” comes at a price. The interest being charged on the loan to Ireland is up to 9%.

Meanwhile George Osborne glibly talks of acting as a friend to the Irish Government. Yet he is acting to guarantee returns to British investors over the needs of the Irish people.

On the so called aid package of £8 billion from Britain is a loan with an interest rate of over 5%, which is a punishing rate. Some friend.

So it is necessary for us to organise against these cuts as consistently and strongly as we can.

The Communication Workers Union supports all those who want to take a stand against the cuts.

But we also have our own battles to wage. The CWU is fighting to Keep the Post Public.

The Coalition Government wants to privatise Royal Mail. This would mean that the services would get worse, and become more expensive.

Private investors will not want to continue with the industry’s “one price goes anywhere” stamp prices.

Private investors will only be interested in the bottom line of the accounts - how much profit can the services bring to the shareholder.

Today it costs the same price if you send a letter from Stevenage to a local address as it does to Scotland.

But a private company will make you spend more to send it to Scotland.

At the moment, Royal Mail offers postal services to you through your local Post Office branches.

A privatised Royal Mail are not going to use Post Office Counters, which are to remain in the public sector. A privatised Royal Mail wants to use private retail outlets.

Your local Post Office branches are dependent upon Royal Mail services. If these services go – then there will be massive numbers of Post Office closures.

Privatisation will lead to higher stamp prices for domestic customers and small businesses.

TNT and Deutsch Post are privatised postal companies in Holland and in Germany respectively. They deliver letters at twice the price of Royal Mail, in their home markets. –

So for these, and other reasons, we are urging people to support our campaign to Keep the Post Public.

There are some simple steps that you can take. We have a range of campaign material which we would like the Trades Council to use.

You also have Stephen McPartland as your Tory MP for Stevenage. He has a majority of 3,578. So he will be under considerable pressure. Why don’t you arrange a lobby, the CWU would be happy to assist in any way to make such an event a real success.

These are difficult times but I am convinced with broad based activity and united action we can Keep the Post Public, and overturn the Coalition Government’s cuts programme.

Thanks for listening.

Posted by Billy Hayes

THis can be found on his blog linked directly from the CWU - the postal service union website if you look it up on google if you are interested.