Campaigners tell PM: ‘No to Royal Mail privatisation’

ON SUNDAY 9 January, 1,000 people turned up in Witney, prime minister David Cameron’s Oxfordshire constituency, to demonstrate against the privatisation of the Royal Mail.

Steve Bell

After a march through the town there was a short rally at which the most memorable speakers were Billy Hayes, Communications Workers’ Union (CWU) general secretary, Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary, and two young people from Witney protesting against youth service closures in Oxfordshire.

Both Billy and Dave emphasised the need to widen the struggle and spoke of industrial action to protect jobs and services and to defeat the Tory cuts, whilst those campaigning to save the youth service spoke about the need to oppose all cuts in services. Critical questions were raised of the Labour Party policy by Dave.

A Buckinghamshire Unison health branch spokesperson raised the Medirest cleaners’ dispute and pointed out that where the trade unions provide a fighting lead then previously unorganised workers will take action, sometimes within only a few months of joining a union. Health activists and Socialist Party members collected over £300 for the Medirest hardship fund.

  • More than one-third of all Post Office’s could close as a result of the Con-Dem coalition’s privatisation of Royal Mail. Currently, a Royal Mail inter-business subsidy keeps 4,400 Post Office branches open. However, this £343 million subsidy to Post Office Limited, which runs 11,900 branches, could end. Under the previous Labour government some 6,000 branches across Britain were closed.