Royal Mail's annual pre-tax profits for 2021 have quadrupled compared with the previous year. Profits stem largely from the pandemic-fuelled online shopping boom. Pre-tax profit jumped to £726m in the year to 28 March, compared with £180m a year earlier.
The massive
rise in profits has led to speculation that Royal Mail will return to the FTSE
100 in next month's quarterly market value-based reshuffle. The company will
reward its shareholders with a bumper payout of £400million.
While the
pandemic has been good for business, it has been an unmitigated disaster for thousands
of postal workers who have got sick with a growing number of fatalities. Many
worry that they have a significant chance of catching a deadly virus every time
they turn for work and pass it on to loved ones.
Dire sickness
levels have seen some customers not receiving mail all week. Large areas of the
country are not receiving mail due to skyrocketing sickness levels amongst
postal workers. In one week alone in the run-up to Christmas, 32 offices I know
about were hit by covid related sickness. Sickness levels are double 2018 levels.
While Covid
has caused havoc in many offices around the country, an even greater cause of disruption
has been the massive restructuring programme undertaken by Royal Mail with the
intimate collaboration of the CWU (Communication Worker Union), hours and job
cuts have been made to increase productivity and profits.
The current
CEO Simon Thompson bragged, "Last year stood out as one of remarkable
change at Royal Mail. It has been challenging at times, but we have learnt that
we can deliver results and change at lightning pace when we are united by a
common purpose."
In the latest
issue of the Courier, Thompson makes the extraordinary claim that 1700
revisions have taken place in the last six months beating the previous figure
of 132 in twelve months.
Many of the
revisions have been a disaster. It seems not a day goes by without pictures and
videos being leaked to the press showing full grey sacks of mail piled high on
top of each other. One office in London some walks not been taken out for weeks.
According to
one source, many revisions have been so rushed 'the revisions are delaying the
post. It is a 'computer says no' scenario. The technology says the routes can
be done, but it does not take into account roadworks, traffic jams and blocks
of flats with 30 addresses the posties have to get to.'
Communication Workers Union
The massive
increase in productivity achieved by Royal Mail courtesy of the new agreement could
have only taken place because of the role played by the CWU. In many offices
around the UK, the union policed implementing the new revisions, while the
others were a collaboration between the union and Royal Mail management. So
much so that it has been hard to tell where the union ends and Royal Mail
management begins. As George Orwell said, "The creatures outside looked
from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it
was impossible to say which was which.[1]
The CWU's 'Pathway
to Change Agreement' between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union
(CWU) was hailed as a new way of working, and it would improve the working
conditions of postal workers, and nothing of the sort has happened.
At Wakefield
Delivery Office, West Yorkshire, the CWU suffered a rebuff when the structural
revision agreed by managers was voted down by 94% of the workforce.
One aspect of
the new agreement trumpeted by the CWU would be an end to bullying by managers,
and this has patently not taken place. Revisions are now being imposed regardless
of the workforce's agreement, hours are cut, and absorption levels are going
through the roof.[2] In many cases, postal
workers are now doing more work than before the agreement.
Also, if the
Covid crisis has proved one thing, it is the inability of the CWU(Communication
Workers Union) to protect its workforce. The role of the CWU has been crucial
during the latest pandemic. There is no way that Royal Mail would be operating,
let alone making money, if it were not for the role of the CWU bureaucracy. The
CWU offered postal workers up as the fifth emergency service, and postal
workers are now increasingly needing to use the real emergency services.
While it is
clear to many that the CWU has become an arm of corporate management, numerous pseudo-left[3]
groups such as the SWP(Socialist Workers Party) contend that the CWU is still
an organisation that will defend workers interests. The SWP held up the latest
agreement between the union and Royal Mail as proof of this.
While there is growing opposition to Royal Mail and the CWU
agreement from postal workers, the
role of the SWP is to provide left and militant credentials to the union
bureaucracy and disarm postal workers seeking to fight. The SWP hailed the new
agreement pathway to Change Agreement' saying it had stopped major attacks on
workers' jobs and conditions. This is a lie, and nothing of the sort has taken
place. If anything, the attacks and the workload of postal workers have
increased after the agreement.
[1] Animal Farm-George Orwell
[2] Absorption. An agreement between
Royal Mail and the CWU that when a postal worker goes sick his delivery is done
by other postal workers on top of their own delivery.
[3] The term “pseudo-left”
denotes political tendencies that utilize democratic and populist phraseology
to advance the interests of privileged sections of the upper middle class and
defend capitalism against socialist revolution. There are many representatives
of this politically reactionary tendency internationally, including the
Democratic Socialists of America in the US, the Left Party in Germany, the
Socialist Workers Party in Britain, Socialist Alternative in Australia, the New
Anti-Capitalist Party in France, Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, and the
NSSP in Sri Lanka. https://www.wsws.org/en/special/pages/pseudoleft.html
