ConDem spin

Royal Mail refusenik calls share offer ‘a step backwards’

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http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/10/royal-mail-refusenik-share-offer

Postman Paul Firmage, one of only 368 employees to have turned down the £2,200 of free shares, says they are ‘little more than a bribe’

Paul Firmage, a postman who turned down Royal Mail shares as a matter of principleOf the 150,000 Royal Mail employees, just 368 have turned down the £2,200 of free shares offered to them as part of the privatisation of the 500-year-old company.

One of them, Paul Firmage, 59, described the free shares as “little more than bribe” and said he refused to take the shares as a “matter of principle”, even though they could be worth more than £2,600 by Friday if the stock rises by 20% or more as predicted.

“I know my refusal to take the shares won’t make much difference, but it is a matter of principle. I’ve always been opposed to privatisations. It’s a step backwards,” he told the Guardian. “Only those at the top – the snouts in the trough brigade, the corporate executives and the speculators – will win. We, the postmen and women on the ground, will lose.”

Firmage, 59, from Downham Market, Norfolk, admits that others think he is silly for not accepting the shares despite his principles. “Yeah, I could have taken the money and still been opposed to it, but principles are principles.

“Some people think it is amazing to turn down £2,000, but I’m looking at it from a long-term point of view – the service will rapidly deteriorate. When it’s private they can cut back on pay and conditions. Our conditions are quite good at the moment.”

He conceded that he might have thought differently about taking a principled stand if he had had a family to support. “I’ve got an older brother, but no other family,” he said. “If I had a family around me I might have a different view.

“[Royal Mail] has always been a public company and there are some things that should be beyond privatisation,” he said. “It’s a state service – it should remain a state service.

“Everything these days is geared towards money. We’ve seen the water companies, the energy companies, the railways, all go. You’ve only got to look at the stock exchange to see everything that used to be ours.”

Firmage, who has been a postman for 11 years, said many colleagues had said they were also going to turn down the shares in protest, but “[the company] hit us with a lot of propaganda”.

The rejected shares will be redistributed between the 150,000 staff who have accepted the shares, which they must hold on to for at least three years.

The 368 figure includes all eight of Royal Mail’s non-executive directors, who are not taking part in the free allocation.

 

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Royal Mail shares: City broker says shares are undervalued by 80% as investor bonanza and questions for Vince Cable loom

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/royal-mail-shares-city-broker-says-shares-are-undervalued-by-80-as-investor-bonanza-and-questions-for-vince-cable-loom-8870740.html

Image of Royal Mail postboxA City stockbroker has said the Royal Mail £3.3billion sell off could have been underpriced by up to 80 per cent.

Canaccord Genuity believe the Royal Mail should be valued at a sum closer to £6billion, or 559p per share, compared to the 330p price per share the Government is expected to charge when trading begins.

Shares were initially priced between 260p and 330p, but were raised to 330p by the Government following strong demand, the BBC has reported.

Business Secretary Vince Cable said approximately 700,000 applications were made by Tuesday night’s deadline, which he believed demonstrated the high level of interest in the controversial privatisation.

Mr Cable faced tough questions from the Business Select Committee over concerns that the company has been undervalued. Committee chairman Adrian Bailey said the Government was overseeing the sale of a profitable, popular, publicly owned company to financial institutions that Mr Cable had criticised in the past.

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Continue ReadingRoyal Mail shares: City broker says shares are undervalued by 80% as investor bonanza and questions for Vince Cable loom

Royal Mail warns thousands will lose jobs after sell-off

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http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/09/royal-mail-warns-thousands-job-losses

Company spokesman indicates substantial job losses following controversial privatisation of 500-year-old institution

Image of back of postman and post sacks

Royal Mail has warned that thousands of postal workers will lose their jobs following its controversial privatisation. On Tuesday the 500-year-old national institution saw unprecedented demand for its share offer, with more than 1 million people thought to have applied. In its written submission to parliament on Wednesday, Royal Mail said: “The company will employ fewer people in the future, whoever owns it.”

The company refused to state how many jobs will be axed, but a spokesman indicated it would be thousands if not tens of thousands of Royal Mail’s 150,000 employees.

Moya Greene, Royal Mail’s chief executive, who was paid £1.6m last year, has said the company needs to be “sized appropriately for the [declining] traffic we have to process”.

The forthcoming cuts come on top of 50,000 jobs lost over the past decade. The company said it “remains committed to the overarching objective of achieving this without compulsory redundancies”.

“Over the past decade, the postal services sector has changed dramatically. A decline in mail volumes has coincided with the liberalisation of the market and the emergence of competition. In recent years, we have seen a significant increase in the number of parcels being sent. All of this has meant a difficult process of change for our people,” Royal Mail said in its submission to the business, innovation and skills select committee.

“Many of Royal Mail’s employees have seen changes to their working practices as the company has adapted its operations to the changed mix of mail. Change will continue and the company will employ fewer people in the future, whoever owns it.”

Royal Mail workers, who are 96% opposed to the privatisation, continued their campaign against the sell-off with a protest outside parliament ahead of committee meeting. Activists dressed up as highway robbers carried banners saying: “The Great British Royal Mail Robbery”.

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Fury at Bully Hunt’s NHS Pay Rise Snub

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http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-7b46-Fury-at-bully-Hunts-NHS-pay-rise-snub#.UlT7oS1XnWd

Health Secretary keen to axe 1 per cent increase

Image of Jeremy Hunt and David CameronUnions laid into Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt yesterday for wanting to ditch a miserly 1 per cent pay increase for hard-working NHS staff.

The GMB accused him of “berating and bullying staff” and said that his behaviour “will not be tolerated,” warning that industrial action was possible.

Unite called for the introduction of the living wage to benefit the NHS’s 17,000 lowest-paid workers.

Mr Hunt caused a huge furore when he said that the independent NHS pay review body should not implement a one per cent increase for 1.3 million NHS staff, or maintain performance-related increments.

Pointing out that the NHS pay review body was independent, GMB’s national NHS officer Rehana Azam said: “You only have to spend time with a paramedic, nurse, theatre porter or any other frontline NHS worker to see their number one priority is to deliver quality care and the best outcomes to patients they care for.”

“Why then does Jeremy Hunt want to berate and bully staff while they are trying to do a good job often under difficult circumstances?”

“This is just wrong and will not be tolerated.”

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Campaigners call for east coast rail franchise to stay in public hands

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http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/08/rail-east-coast-public

Rail unions and MPs say state-owned operator’s success means government should rethink return of franchise to private sector

Image of an East Coast trainCampaigners have renewed calls to keep the east coast mainline rail franchise in public hands after the state-owned operator revealed it returned £208.7m to the taxpayer last year, a rise of 6.6%.

Directly Operated Railways, the Department for Transport-owned company behind East Coast, said revenue had risen 4.2% and record levels of customer satisfaction had been reached in the year 2012-13 – although that has since fallen after a series of delays on the line.

Karen Boswell, the managing director of East Coast, said: “We’ve been able to show increased growth year on year and I expect next year to be even stronger.”

She ascribed the positive results to leadership, investment and increased employee engagement.

Mick Whelan, the general secretary of the train drivers’ union Aslef, said: “These latest figures show why we need to keep the east coast in the public sector. It’s a key tool against which we can measure the success or failure of the privatised train operating companies.

“Each year these companies are pushing up prices for passengers and moving hundreds of millions of pounds in dividends to shareholders, often offshore, money which could and should be used to hold down fares and provide vital investment in Britain’s railway network.”

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Related: East Coast rail service costs taxpayers less than private lines, report reveals

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