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Royal Mail inflexibility reaches all the way to Albany St
WHILE the government is being torn apart over the future of the Royal Mail, what may be considered a lesser question arises over a post office in Albany Street, Regent’s Park.
To the protesters, the parliamentary battle between the unelected Peter Mandelson, who wants to semi-privatise the Royal Mail, and his opponents, nearly 150 Labour MPs, all this may seem a lot of high politics. But it is, in fact, directly linked.
It appears that at the heart of the contractual tussle is the chemist who runs the service’s wishes to open its counters just five days a week.
Obstinately, the Post Office says no, they must be open six days. And this despite protests from 6,000 locals as well as ward councillors.
We believe a major fault line running through Royal Mail has been poor, inflexible management since, at least, the 1990s.
Management-union relations have been at a low ebb for years – and more often than not the executive can be blamed.
To complicate things profits made by Royal Mail have had to be ploughed back into Whitehall accounts, thus weakening the organisation.
Inflexibility, it seems, runs right through the Royal Mail.
It does not surprise us to discover the regional management is stubbornly refusing to compromise over the Albany Street post office at a time when their bosses on the executive board – also known for their inflexibility – are digging their heels in over proposals to, effectively, sell off a large share of the business to a Dutch company.
Local moves by the Post Office have their roots in high politics, after all.
Same old story
AT the heart of every company takeover lies a matter that gets less publicity than it should.
One can always be sure that whoever takes over will insist on cutting a major cost factor facing any company – employment levels and salaries.
All takeovers since the Thatcher days of the 1980s demonstrate this.
At present negotiations – however tentative – are taking place between Camden Council and Greenwich Leisure over a takeover of the very successful Talacre Centre.
Is it really a coincidence that at this very moment, a key member of the staff, basketball coach Zac Roswell, faces the sack?
The council say cuts need to be made. But then they would say this, wouldn’t they?
Whenever a takeover is imminent, things are said to be in a bad way, and that the only solution is for someone else to manage the ailing company.
We have been here before. The language is always the same. And at the end of it all, the staff is cut.
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