ROYAL MAIL bosses are threatening to declare the company bankrupt and place it into ‘a special form of administration,’ leading to the sack for over 100,000 postal workers and the end of the universal delivery service.
BBC News reported a management ‘source’ as telling it yesterday: ‘Administration is a real possibility for Royal Mail if the industrial action continues. It is not a negotiating ploy’.
It continued: ‘The government would have to approve a move into administration. This could mean Royal Mail is declared insolvent.
‘The company has warned that it could place the regulated part of the business – which has a legal duty to deliver post to every address in the country – into a special form of insolvency if a compromise deal cannot be reached.’
A Communications Workers Union spokesman responded: ‘It is clear Royal Mail Group is in a serious financial situation. This is as a direct result of mismanagement and recklessness at the most senior level of the company. Those individuals who have led the company into this crisis have no right to lead us out of it.
‘The company as a whole now has a decision to make – do they reach an agreement with the union or do they continue their relentless and daily assault on postal workers in workplaces across the UK?
‘There is no positive future for Royal Mail without the support of the workforce.’
Last month, CWU members at Royal Mail voted by 95.9% on a 77.3% turnout to take further strike action, in what General Secretary Dave Ward described as a ‘historic testament to CWU members across the country who have stood firm against the most severe attacks faced by any set of workers since the miners.’
In an update to union members last Friday, Ward said: ‘We completely understand the anger and frustration at the way the company are treating our members.
‘Royal Mail is in a serious financial position, we’re not hiding away from that. But that’s no excuse for the way they’re behaving towards our members.’
Ward said that if the company cannot reach an agreement with the union by early this week, the CWU will serve notice for further strike action.
Royal Mail management are seeking to scrap the ‘universal service obligation’ which legally obliges it to provide six days a week letter delivery, which it claims is ‘unprofitable’.
The CWU has previously warned that Royal Mail management is trying to ‘casualise’ the postal service and ‘want to turn it into an Uber-style employer’.
