WHISTL, formerly known as TNT, has suspended its door-to-door delivery service in London, Liverpool and Manchester and is threatening to sack 2,000 workers, it emerged yesterday.
Dave Ward, CWU general secretary elect, said: ‘Ofcom must understand that promoting this model of competition in a declining letters market does not benefit workers, business or the public.’
He added: ‘Our first reaction to this news is concern for the workers who have lost their jobs. This is of course a difficult time for them and their families and, coming less than six months after City Link folded, is the most recent effect of a crowded post and logistics market.
‘Ofcom needs to pay attention to the impact of competition in the postal market which is not only causing job losses but playing a leading role in driving terms and conditions downwards.
‘The sad truth is if Whistl had been successful then it would have been at the expense of even more job losses in Royal Mail and the end of six day a week deliveries to 29 million UK addresses.
‘In order to defend jobs and conditions in Royal Mail we need to fight for the re-nationalisation of Royal Mail and the restoration of the postal monopoly,’ Rob Bolton Delivery Unit rep South Central number 1 CWU said yesterday.
He added: ‘What allowed these predator companies to spring up was first the breaking of Royal Mail’s monopoly on items costing £1 and under, then the so-called liberalisation of the postal industry and finally the privatisation of Royal Mail.
‘These companies are a direct threat to CWU members’ jobs but CWU members should not rejoice at the demise of Whistl, we need to defend these workers’ jobs they are low paid or on zero-hour contracts and are now to be sacked as Lloyds bank has refused Whistl further finances.
‘Workers in these companies like Whistl are totally dispensable, as are all workers under capitalism, a system that has no future for any workers no matter how low paid they are, as the demise of whistl has shown.
‘In order for workers to defend their jobs and their pay and their conditions workers need to build a new leadership in unions like unite and the CWU that will fight to defend every job.
‘The current CWU leadership allowed privatisation to come in. They have no perspective for campaigning to defend jobs, we have lost 60,000 jobs in the last five years and that doesn’t bode well for the future.
‘We need a new principled leadership not the present group of opportunists.’
