Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/506/3292
From The Socialist newspaper, 17 October 2007
Save Bolsover Post Offices
'Save our Post Office' window posters are going up in many houses. Following a wave of post office closures two years ago, 180 closures are planned as the first batch of the latest wave of 2,500 branches to be axed across the country.
Jon Dale, Bolsover
If Post Office Ltd bosses get away with this, they will be back for another round in a year or two. The whole network of local post offices is threatened.
Hardest hit will be elderly and disabled people, having to travel by infrequent buses if they can, pay for a taxi or pay to get their money from a cash machine in a shop or pub. Highly paid post office bosses who make these decisions won't be queuing for their salaries!
Apparently the post office network is losing £4 million a week and fewer customers are using the post offices. So why did the Labour government stop pensions and benefits being paid with a book, forcing people to open bank accounts? And now we can't pay water rates, buy TV licenses or pay some gas bills at the post office.
The bosses are deliberately making post offices unviable. Who will benefit? The banks – eyeing up all the extra profits they can make, and the supermarkets - taking services into their stores to draw more customers in.
In North Derbyshire the fight to save our post offices is on! 60 angry Carr Vale residents attended an emergency Community Association meeting, called at just three days notice.
A meeting in Hodthorpe has been organised. Post office queues are being leafleted for a rally outside the one office planned to stay open (for the time being) in Bolsover.
We will show what the queues would be like if the four surrounding offices close.
Protest has to be built across the area. The more we can join local campaigns together the stronger we will be, and the harder for the post office bosses (and behind them the government) to ignore us.
We need action to show we will not give up these vital local services without a fight.
Why not click here to join the Socialist Party, or click here to donate to the Socialist Party.
In The Socialist 17 October 2007:
National Health Service Cutbacks and privatisation kill
The vultures are circling ever closer
Postal dispute
Postal workers waiting to assess Royal Mail deal
Fighting Royal Mail management's attacks
Solid unofficial action in East London
National Shop Stewards' Network meetings
Socialist Party Marxist analysis
International Appeal
Students on trumped-up charges
Socialist Students
National Shop Stewards Network
Young workers and students need to get involved
"You've got to stick together"
Stop the placement rip-off now!
Campaign for a New Workers Party
Trade Union Freedom Bill
Trade Union Freedom Bill: Banishing Thatcher's anti-union legacy?
Working longer hours for less pay
Socialist Party women
ITV2 - making a good deal out of women's bodies
International socialist news and analysis
Workers' struggle and political instability sends Polish government into meltdown
Australia: Liberals v Labour - no choice for working people in election
Socialist Party news and analysis
Children's homes at risk of buy-outs
Home | The Socialist 17 October 2007 | Join the Socialist Party
Join us today!
Printable version
email to friend
