‘We have to be bold and honest in our fight to stop Royal Mail privatisation,’ Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) Eastern Region Secretary Paul Moffat told News Line yesterday.
Asked to comment on Royal Mail’s £900,000 a day profit over the past nine months, Moffat said: ‘making this amount of profit against a background of mail centre, post office and Crown Post Office closures is totally unacceptable.
‘For the government to try to push through its part-privatisation plan, saying Royal Mail is under-performing is a falsehood.
‘The business’s profits clearly indicate that Royal Mail can provide a full service while wholly publicly owned.
‘The government, now with the Labour MPs’ revolt against the “Mandelson review” of Royal Mail Group, is relying on the Tories to drive through its privatisation plans.
‘As far as we are concerned, the fight is on. This is our last stand, really.
‘We are going to have to mount a huge public, industrial and political campaign to save Royal Mail.’
He added: ‘Emergency Motion E6 passed at the CWU annual conference last year has to be enacted in March 2009.
‘It calls for the suspension of funding to the Labour Party should the government not keep Royal Mail fully publicly owned.’
CWU Scotland No2 branch secretary, Edinburgh, Willie Marshall told News Line: ‘We’re constantly under attack. Royal Mail are looking for ten per cent savings in every mail centre and delivery office in Scotland,’
He added: ‘The banks have been bailed out, they’ve nationalised banks. Yet Royal Mail they want to part-privatise. It beggars belief.
‘There’s an Early Day Motion signed by 103 Labour MPs, and our union is mandated to withdraw moral and financial support for the Labour Party if it privatises Royal Mail in any shape or form.
‘If things don’t get any better there will be some form of industrial action.
‘All three political parties are for this part privatisation.
‘If things don’t change there’s bound to be strike action. We’re up against the wall.’
All Trades Unions Alliance national secretary Dave Wiltshire said: ‘Royal Mail historically always made a profit.
‘It was taken straight into the government’s coffers.
‘These latest profits expose all the lies that it is a bankrupt industry that can only be saved through privatisation and the destruction of workers’ pensions.
‘Royal Mail must be kept in public ownership.
‘The CWU must demand an end to unfair competition, that all postal services be brought back into Royal mail and the privateers expelled.
‘If the government won’t do this, it must be brought down with national strike action as part of a general strike movement to keep all industries going through nationalisation.’
• see meetings page 2
