Don’t Let Royal Mail Die
Postal workers have played a vital role in communities for centuries – but now that's under existential threat from a corporate leadership hell-bent on turning Royal Mail into another Uber. We can’t let that happen.
Striking mail workers and supporters gather in Parliament Square to listen to speeches by union leaders and representatives on 9 December 2022 in London, England. (Leon Neal / Getty Images)
There are few institutions like Royal Mail. As one of the oldest postal bodies in the world, the 500-year-old company occupies a unique role in Britain’s national life. During the Second World War, its workers defied Hitler’s bombs; showing their determination to secure their service and keep things moving in the midst of the Blitz, they formed their own workers’ battalions to defend buildings and mail in the event of Nazi invasion. That same heroism was repeated in the Covid-19 pandemic, when scores of posties paid with their lives to keep the country connected.
Heroism is not the only reason why this public service is so cherished. Its workers—the more than 115,000 postal workers up and down the country—are woven into the social fabric of every community they serve. The red pillar boxes that dot this island are essential to the British landscape, and their interconnectedness with those they serve is an increasingly unique trait in an age where the ‘job for life’ no longer apparently exists.
These are aspects that postal workers like Mike, who has been in the job for 28 years, take great pride in. ‘We are that conduit between communities,’ he tells Tribune. ‘In lockdown, we kept people connected at a time when they literally don’t see anyone, and that continues with many people are working from home—whether it’s just a wave through the window or we’re handing over a parcel, posties are the only people many see for hours on end.’
Sandy—who has worked at Royal Mail for over three decades—loves this particular aspect. ‘I love my delivery. There’s a little boy that was born just after I started on this particular round, and now he’s started school. I always enjoy having a chat with some of the older residents, too, who often have no one to talk to.’ At Covid’s height, Sandy and her colleagues collected prescriptions for vulnerable people and kept the smiles on people’s faces by dressing up for Halloween or running kids’ colouring competitions. ‘We’d ask them to put a picture in the window,’ she explains, ‘and the best ones would get prizes.’
‘You get to know people,’ says Ross, a Black Country postie who followed his father’s footsteps in joining Royal Mail in 2009. ‘I often put the bins out. I’ve been in homes to put lightbulbs in, made them a cup of tea. It means a lot to the older generation living on their own.’ Many people know this is the ‘extracurricular’ work inherent to the Royal Mail: not just a means of communication, but part of a wider and deeper communal fabric.
Left in the Dark
Traditionally, a posties’ job started very early in the morning and finished in the early afternoon—a shift pattern that has always enabled Sandy and her partner to maintain a decent work-life balance and raise their family. ‘A lot of people are attracted to the shift pattern, early starts and early finishes,’ she tells Tribune. ‘I know of a lot of families where someone works in the morning as a postie while their other half might work in the afternoon or evenings somewhere else. It makes childcare a lot easier.’
But these conditions are now under threat. Earlier this year, posties had a 2% pay offer imposed on them—abysmal at any time, many pointed out, but particularly brutal during an historic cost-of-living crisis, and when inflation was at 11.7%. When nearly 100% of Royal Mail workers voted on an 80% turnout twice against both this pay deal and the generally downward slide in workplace conditions, the company responded by issuing formal legal notice that it was withdrawing from all existing legal agreements with the union and was seeking to redraw a relationship with the union that would be less negotiational and more consultative—a toothless, busted union, in other words.
Since then, Royal Mail have offered slightly more money for workers if they accept the complete destruction of their conditions, but most are not budging. ‘I seriously don’t think I will be able to continue as a postie if they push through these changes,’ Sandy believes. ‘In my 33 years on the job, I never thought I’d ever be put in this position.’
During the height of the pandemic, Ross was injured and on sick leave for three months. With postal workers receiving six months full sick pay and another six on half pay, he knew he could recover in security. Now, bosses want to cut sick pay to one week paid, with posties then expected to go on Britain’s statutory sick pay—at less than £100 a week, one of Europe’s worst payouts—if they have real issues. This is a serious concern for a physically intensive, repetitive job. ‘I don’t know anyone in our office who’s been the job for longer than a year who hasn’t got any physical health problems,’ says Ross. ‘So many of my fellow posties suffer from pains and aches in their back, shoulders and feet… it’s physically demanding.’
The process—which workers are dubbing the ‘Uberisation’ of the company—will also involve an annualised hours system, meaning that workers will be far more likely to be sent home in the summer months, where there is generally less work, and then work longer in the festive period and without overtime payments. Sandy dreads the thought: ‘we’ll be working when it’s darker and colder,’ she says. ‘I’m deeply uncomfortable that with and, quite frankly, it doesn’t feel particularly safe.’
This attack also means posties with ever diminishing say over the times they’re expected to work, which has sparked obvious (and justified) fears among much of the workforce that they are heading towards gig economy standards in their working lives. ‘We’re going to lose an historic institution,’ says Sandy. ‘There won’t be that friendly face that has time to stop, talk and help out their community. We’ll just be another parcel business.’
Protect Our Post
In some ways, that destruction has already begun to happen. ‘Since privatisation in 2013, we’re expected to get rounds done quicker, and we don’t really have that same time to actually talk to the people we’ve been seeing on the doorstep for the past few decades,’ says Mike. ‘It’s all about making money for the business.’ Back in the day, he adds, posties were dealing with smaller parcels and a more manageable workload in their bags. Today, they’re expected to manoeuvre handcarts with large parcels around the streets. Letters have decreased over time, but together with parcels, the weight has not. ‘A lot of us are suffering with knee and shoulder injuries,’ he adds. ‘It’s a very tough demanding job, especially in the winter, when its freezing cold, there’s more rain and it’s darker.’
Such changes are also evident in the way the dispute has been conducted. A union rep, Mike has been involved in his fair share of disputes in his three decades at Royal Mail. But this time, he says, things are different. ‘In my time, we’ve always been able to vote on our pay offer,’ he says. With inflation in the double digits and the current crisis to contend with, posties like Mike say the figure on the table doesn’t even touch the sides. ‘People are having to choose between turning the heating on or incurring ridiculous energy costs. Some can’t afford to give their kids Christmas presents.’
But sympathy will not be seemingly found in the homes of Royal Mail’s leadership, who seem intent on smashing the self-respect of their workforce to pieces. Far from taking any step that could be perceived as reconciliatory, the company withdrew from all legal agreements from the CWU, implied changes that would mean the defanging of the union, threatened to dock workers’ pay if they call in sick, tried to humiliate their employees online, and offered five-figure bonuses to scab managers. This behaviour is all the more hard to accept given that Royal Mail’s top brass awarded themselves £2,000,000 in shares during the strikes.
But these heightened stakes are also feeding back to the public, who have turned out across the country to back the postal workers embedded in their communities. According to a recent Survation poll, over two-thirds of the British public support posties taking strike action. ‘I’ve never known the general public to be more on our side,’ says Mike. ‘The general public come to the picket line with flasks of tea and cake. Every other car driving past beeps their horns in support. The support has been absolutely incredible.’
These experiences, which Mike says are ‘humbling’, are keeping 115,000 posties stood tall on picket lines in this country right now. With breathtakingly low numbers of strikebreaking taking place, most members of the CWU seem to be completely unfazed in the face of constant, brutal, and often personalised management attacks on themselves and their colleagues. They know they are actually fighting for something worthwhile that everyone deserves—decent jobs, a place in the country, and a viable future for those things—and they aren’t budging.