Let the workers own the post
As the Royal Mail is worthless, the best solution is to give the business away. But who to? The pension fund or the trade union?
Whether it is given to the unions or the pension fund, Royal Mail would be owned by its workers, past or present. It would be a perfect way to align the interests of the business with those of the employees. The more valuable they make the operation, the more valuable they become.
We know the business is worthless because the pension fund’s trustee has written to Lord Mandelson saying the deficit on the pension makes it bankrupt.
The business minister’s solution is for the government to plug the pensions deficit while offering a third of Royal Mail to an outside investor – probably TNT – who could bring operational skills that might turn round this notoriously inefficient and labour-intensive business.
But why not give the whole of Royal Mail to the pension fund? The fund would own its own sponsor and be responsible for its own deficit. If the trustee wanted to increase contributions to make the fund solvent she would have to improve the efficiency of the trading operation.
If she wants to bring in a partner like TNT, that would be her – and her worker-members’ - choice. If Royal Mail ever becomes sufficiently valuable to properly privatise, the fund would keep the proceeds.
The alternative is to give the business to the workers directly – possibly by donating it to the communications union. The trade union would thus have to make the difficult decision on whether to bring in partners, reduce staffing, freeze pay, lower pension expectations or whatever, but who better to take action to improve productivity than the workers themselves?
If we can nationalise former building societies surely we can mutalise nationalised industries?
There are other stakeholders involved here, of course. As taxpayers, the public should welcome getting rid of a business that borrows from a state that has already subsidised its past losses and would have to pick up the pension-fund deficit under present plans.
And as users of the postal service, the public should be worried about swapping a state monopoly for any other monopoly, whether union-owned or pension-fund-owned.
Just in case workers or pensioners somehow damage their own business to the users’ loss, this should also be the time to introduce proper competition into postal services. TNT or Business Post should be ready to offer a full mail delivery.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Misinformed as usual you lot,the tax payer has not only profited from the commercial loans that Royal Mail has had,for many years the tax payer through the government have taken large chunks of Royal Mail profit over the years which runs into Billions of pounds,not to mention the near £3bn the tax payer has recieved again through the government form the pension holiday that Royal Mail took.
Next….